New Executive Elected

At the Assembly a new leadership was elected to guide WAY over the next three years. Only one of these people was on the previous Executive. That members value New Zealand's continued participation in WAY was seen by the election of NYC President Errol Millar to influential position over the next three years.

Clearly this new administration faces great difficulties in trying to keep WAY alive. Money must be found, and efforts made to carry out the programme that was decided on at the Assembly.

This too will be difficult. The Assembly stated clearly, that although they saw Family Planning Programmes as one area for WAY to be involved in it would only be if local youth councils saw these as relevant to their situation (as Indian, and Sri Lankan delegates clearly did). There was wide agreement that Family Planning should be only one element of the WAY programme.

Plans were mounted to set up a team of young economists to study the U.N. proposals for a New World Economic Order and to start thinking of more radical proposals than those currently before the U.N.

There are plans for a display of works by yojg artists to be mounted and sent round different countries. There are proposals for youth exchanges for the training of young leaders in Community Development - to encourage youth to study critically the cultural heritage of their own countries, and how this heritage can be retained in the face of increasing technological change. All of these, I suggest are very exciting programmes, yet unless the money can be found, they will remain purely as ideas.

I believe for N.Z. to withdraw from WAY now would be a mistake.

We must wait and see how this new administration performs, to see whether they can make these ideas work, to see whether they can begin to re-open dialogue with those countries that have left the organisation, and to see whether promises that the new administration will be more open and less sensitive to criticism are kept.

If this can be done, WAY faces, if not a bright future, then at least as good a future as can be hoped for given the nature of the present world. A perfect World may provide a perfect world organisation - in the meantime I believe WAY is worth sticking to.