Colombo Plan conference, 1956

International delegates at a Colombo Plan conference inside Parliament House in Wellington, November 1956.

The Colombo Plan for Co-operative Economic Development in South and South-East Asia was launched in 1950. It was intended to help combat the spread of communism by encouraging ecomomic and social development within poorer Asian countries. The original seven members – Australia, Britain, Canada, Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), India, New Zealand and Pakistan – were later joined by 19 other countries.