“The climate is ripe to push forward for a new world economic order and the developing countries are maturing and better able to articulate their position about their health needs,” Dr. Paul O. Chuke, an executive board member from Zaire, said in explaining why the third world acted at the last Assembly.  Dr. Halfdan T. Mahler, the Danish Director General of the World Health Organization since 1973, said that the new push was a step toward “a. social revolution in public health.”  W.H.O., in a. report submitted to the United Nations development program, said that the resolution “is probably the most revolutionary since the inception of the organization” 29 years ago.  Most developing countries have only minimal health services, Dr. Mahler said, because too many squandered limited resources on costly items and .specialized hospitals that benefited relatively few instead of creating health centers in rural areas that would Meet the needs of many more people. Electron microscopes and other sophisticated and costly equipment donated through aid programs go unused in some developing countries because of the lack of maintenance and trained personnel.  Dr. Rogelio Valladares of Venezuela, chairman of the executive board, said that 40 percent of the new equipment in five unspecified South American countries lay idle because of lack of maintenance.  Now, Dr. Mahler said, the World Health Organization, which is, on the verge of wiping out smallpox through a global vaccination program, plans an expanded immunization campaign against diphtheria, tetanus, polio and other common childhood diseases that kill millions in Africa and Asia each year.  Also, the organization has created a research program, still in its infancy, that is designed to find preventions and better treatments for malaria, snail fever and other tropical diseases that limit economic growth in third‐world countries by sapping the strength of a large percentage of the population. Further, It is starting a blindness prevention program.  A chief aim is to make the developing countries more self‐reliant in health matters. Other programs are not limited to medicine. Depending on the circumstances, they would include developing potable water supplies, better sewage control and agricultural and other environmental measures that would improve health standards in developing countries.  While the industrialized countries are now focusing their attack on chemical pollution, the developing countries still face major challenges in overcoming biglogical pollution from water systems contaminated with sewage.  The developing countries, discontented with the lack of permanent benefit from assistance programs, insisted in their resolution that the World Health Organization meet these goals through emphasis on “technical cooperation” rather than “technical assistance.”  Confusion still exists about what programs come under the technical cooperation category, although members of the executive board privately agreed that the term included direct expert advice and supplies. The hoard avoided adopting an official definition in part because of this confusion and in part because it did not want to limit Dr. Mahler's administrative flexibility.  Instead, the board referred to the provisional definition offered by Dr. Mahler. He interpreted technical cooperation to mean “activities which have a high degree of social relevance for member states, in the sense that they are directed towards defined national health goals and that they will contribute directly and significantly to the improvement of the health status of their populations through methods that they can apply now and at a cost they can afford now.” Such activities, he said, should conform to the aim of “developing national self‐reliance in matters of health.”  The resolution demanded that by 1980 the agency devote at least 60 percent of its projected budget of $189 million to “techincal cooperation and provision of services.” In the 1977 budget of $147.2 million, these activities account for 51 percent of the regular spending. The resolution does not affect W.H.O.'s supplemental budget for special projects that is derived from private and governmental sources and that amounts to $130 million this year.  Passage of the resolution forced the executive board, which consists‐of representatives from 30 of the World Health Organization's 150 member nations, to approve cuts of 363 jobs over the next four years: The organization employs 6,013 people here and in the field, but the cuts focus on the staff here, because the delegates from the developing‐countries criticized the high wage and administrative costs of. Maintaining headquarters in Switzerland.  Even before the cuts, Dr. Mahler said that the health organization had the smallest percentage (29) of its staff in headquarters of any major United Nations agency.  Limits on W.H.O. Role Noted  Officials interviewed emphasized that the health needs of any developing country .would exceed the yearly budget of W.H.O. and that limits existed to what the organization could do with the accumulated savings of $41 million that will be diverted to the new and expanded programs.  “W.H.O. doesn't have the means” to supply. developing countries with their vaccine, drug and other medical equipment needs, Dr: Zabuse M: Dlamini, senior medical officer in the Swaziland Health Ministry, said.  Accordingly, Dr. Joshua Cohen, an Israeli who is the chief planner for the World Health Organization, said that the projects would be designed to attract ad.ditional contributions from American and international organizations such as the World Bank.  Executive board members from developed countries said that they had been surprised by introduction of the technital cooperation resolution although the group of 77 third world countries had been demending more aid in all fields from international organizations.  The United States, Which is the largest contributor to the budget of the World Health Organization, expressed sympathy with the basic principle of the resolution. But the United States and other industrialized countries abstained from the asembly vote last May because of objections to fixing a fixing on, an arbitrary basis, and not after careful budgetary analysis.  The abstention by the United‐States was also a reaction to the. acrimonious presentation. of the resolution by some third world delegates who attacked the W.H.O. staff for living like, maharajahs.  Another reason, according to Manuel Abrams, the deputy chief of the United States mission here, was the concern that the demand for a fixed percentage would set a precedent that would. spread to other, in ternationaE organizations.  The United States does not now have an official poSition on the issue.  We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.  A version of this archives appears in print on January 30, 1977, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: W.H.O. to Cut Staff in Shift of Goals. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
increasing econ demands of Third World nations revd; upcoming Paris Conf on Internatl Econ Development between Third World and indus nations noted (Internatl Econ Survey) (M)