Following the pioneering Geneva-based UNCTAD, ¡®Chapters¡¯ were formed within a few years wherever there was a substantial United Nations presence, in conformity with the Declarations mentioned above. There are at present seven Chapters, namely, Geneva (UNCTAD, 1964), New York (United Nations Headquarters). Paris (UNESCO, 1969), Rome (FAO), Nairobi (UNEP HABITAT), Vienna (FAO, UNIDO), and Washington DC (Group of 24, 1972, IMF and the World Bank).

The New York Chapter has the overall mandate for co-ordinating the work of the Group of 77 activities on a global level. North-South and South-South issues assure the implementation and follow-up of the Caracas Programme of action on ECDC/TCDC.

During the last thirty years the Group has grown both in its membership and in the variety of its commitments and objectives. Its concept of multilateralism has made it an organization wider in scope than the Non-Aligned Movement.

The 1981 Caracas Conference proved to be a historic landmark in the life of the Group in particular and in the developing world as a whole, owing to its profound analysis of problems and the objectives and methods of work formulated in the Caracas Programme of Action (CPA).