Imposition of national priorities on other countries

Health ministers of developing countries, for example, object to being forced to spend disproportionate amounts of available resources on the agendas of Western countries which for internal; political reasons emphasize issues such as smoking, seat-belt safety, environmental education. In developing countries these are felt to be of lower priority than the use of scarce resources to purchase vaccines, medicines and equipment for those dying from preventable diseases. It is estimated by the WHO that more than 1.8 billion people will be affected by vaccine-preventable diseases in 1991.

Similarly Asian countries have become increasingly impatient with the tendency of Western countries to impose their own conception of human rights on countries with other traditions which are politically, culturally, economically and geographically distant.