Following debate this week on the situation of the least developed countries (LDCs), the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board called for LDCs and their development partners to focus on steps leading to durable economic growth.
The Trade and Development Board (TDB) concluded its 59th session in Geneva this evening. Among its agreed conclusions were several under its agenda item on “UNCTAD’s contribution to the implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs: First progress report.”
The Programme of Action was adopted at the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries held in May 2011 in Istanbul.
Among other conclusions, the TDB urged LDCs and their development partners to create “the right economic and social environment to develop comparative advantages in different productive sectors and through fostering investment in building productive capacities,” including through “promoting structural economic transformation.” It also recommended steps to reduce poverty, create jobs improve standards of living, and promote gender equality.
The conclusions acknowledge that “climate change disproportionately affects the socioeconomic development of LDCs," and that LDCs also face challenges in environmental degradation.
The TDB called for development partners to provide continued assistance to improve agricultural productivity in LDCs through research, innovation and technological upgrading.
The Istanbul Programme of Action includes a comprehensive mandate for UNCTAD to carry out research and analysis, consensus building, and technical cooperation work related to LDCs. UNCTAD’s principal objectives are to contribute to international consensus-building on trade and development issues of interest to LDCs, to draw the attention of policymakers to the development challenges confronting these countries, and to enable them to build their institutional and human resources capacities in the areas of trade, finance, investment, trade logistics, and other areas.
The Istanbul programme sets a target of having half the globe’s 48 LDCs be on track for graduation from the category by 2012, but the TDB’s agreed conclusions admit that progress towards this goal has been slow and “if the current trend continues, the likelihood of the majority of LDCs meeting one or two graduation criteria remains very low.”
The agreed conclusions also call for increased assistance to improve agricultural productivity in LDCs and for efforts to “mitigate the impact of commodity price volatility on LDCs’ economies.”
The TDB also encouraged countries in a position to do so to contribute towards "the revitalization of the UNCTAD Trust Fund for LDCs."
