The primary objective of UNCTAD is to formulate policies relating to all aspects of development, including trade, aid, transport, finance and technology.

One of UNCTAD's principal achievements was conceiving and implementing the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which promotes the export of manufactured goods from developing countries.

The lists, originally defined in 19th General Assembly resolution 1995[7] serve to balance geographical distribution of member states' representation on the Trade Development Board and other UNCTAD structures.

These early discussions paved the way for new IMF facilities to provide finance for shortfalls in commodity earnings and for the Generalised Preference Schemes which increased access to Northern markets for manufactured imports from the South.

[17] At the Geneva meeting, Raúl Prebisch—a prominent Argentinian economist from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)—became the organization's first secretary-general.

Discussion centred on the international monetary system and specifically on the South's proposal that a higher proportion of new special drawing rights (SDRs) should be allocated to LDCs as a form of aid (the so-called 'link').

This internal dissent seriously weakened the group's negotiating position and led to a final agreed motion which recommended that the IMF should examine the link and that further research be conducted into general reforms.

An Overseas Development Institute briefing paper of April 1979 highlights one reason for success as being down to the 1973 Oil Crisis and the encouragement of LDCs to make gains through producers of other commodities.

An Overseas Development Institute briefing paper written in 1979 focuses its attention on the key issues regarding the LDCs' role as the Group of 77 in the international community.

One of UNCTAD's earliest and most notable accomplishments was the formulation and implementation of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), which offered special tariff concessions to exports of manufactured goods by developing countries.