that transcend a constantly changing economic landscape and an
artificially imposed division of human societies into "developed" and
"developing".

As the purpose of development is being redefined, it will become necessary
also to look again at assumptions about the appropriate roles to be played
by the protagonists in the process. The crucial role of government, at
whatever level, requires no elaboration. Future generations, however, will
find almost incomprehensible the circumstance that, in an age paying
tribute to an egalitarian philosophy and related democratic principles,
development planning should view the masses of humanity as essentially
recipients of benefits from aid and training. Despite acknowledgement of
participation as a principle, the scope of the decision making left to
most of the world's population is at best secondary, limited to a range of
choices formulated by agencies inaccessible to them and determined by
goals that are often irreconcilable with their perceptions of reality.

This approach is even endorsed, implicitly if not explicitly, by
established religion. Burdened by traditions of paternalism, prevailing
religious thought seems incapable of translating an expressed faith in the
spiritual dimensions of human nature into confidence in humanity's
collective capacity to transcend material conditions.

Such an attitude misses the significance of what is likely the most
important social phenomenon of our time. If it is true that the
governments of the world are striving through the medium of the United
Nations system to construct a new global order, it is equally true that
the peoples of the world are galvanized by this same vision. Their
response has taken the form of a sudden efflorescence of countless
movements and organizations of social change at local, regional, and
international levels. Human rights, the advance of women, the social
requirements of sustainable economic development, the overcoming of
prejudices, the moral education of children, literacy, primary health
care, and a host of other vital concerns each commands the urgent advocacy
of organizations supported by growing numbers in every part of the globe.

This response of the world's people themselves to the crying needs of the
age echoes the call that Baha'u'llah raised over a hundred years ago: "Be
anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your
deliberations on its exigencies and requirements." Th