It became apparent, too, that pre-war conceptions regarding the use and distribution of wealth would have to be overhauled. Apart from principles of social justice, which doubtless motivated a significant number of those committed to this task, the economic dislocations produced by the events of the previous three decades had made it clear that existing arrangements were outdated and ineffective. Experiments to address such problems at the national level had been undertaken in several countries in response to the Depression during the 1930s. Now an interlocking system of institutions oriented to recognition that national economies constitute elements of a global whole was successively devised and put in place. The International Monetary Fund, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, the World Bank, and various subsidiary agencies began belatedly to grapple with the implications of an integrating world, and with issues related to the distribution of wealth inherent in this development. Thinkers in developing countries were not slow to point out that such initiatives served primarily the needs of the Western world. Nevertheless, their emergence marked a fundamental change of direction that would increasingly open participation to a wide range of states and institutions. A humanitarian initiative of a kind never previously conceived opened still another dimension of the global integration occurring. Beginning with the “Marshall Plan” devised by the government of the United States to rehabilitate war-torn European nations, those nations that were able to do so turned to serious consideration of programmes that might foster the social and economic development of rising nations. Widespread publicity awakened a sense of solidarity with the rest of the world on the part of peoples in lands that enjoyed reasonable levels of education, health care and the application of technology. In time, this ambitious initiative came under attack for the mixed motives attributed to it. Nor can anyone deny that the long-term results of development projects have been heartbreakingly disappointing in their failure to close the yawning gap between the rich and the poor. Neither circumstance can obscure, however, a sense of common humanity in its objectives that spoke perhaps most eloquently in the response it evoked from an army of idealistic youth of many lands.