The Least Developed Countries Report 2018: Entrepreneurship for Structural Transformation – Beyond Business as Usual

The Trade and Development Board

1. Welcomes the UNCTAD The Least Developed Countries Report 2018: Entrepreneurship for Structural Transformation: Beyond Business as Usual, and commends it for the quality of its analysis, the pertinence of its policy recommendations and the timeliness of the choice of its topic;
    
2. Welcomes UNCTAD analysis on structural transformation and entrepreneurship as a valuable guideline for policymakers;
    
3. Acknowledges transformational entrepreneurship as a vital link to wealth creation, decent work and innovation, and highlights its important role in achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions;
    
4. Remains deeply concerned that continued high rates of adult and youth unemployment, combined with low productive capabilities in least developed countries, whose international share of trade in the global economy remains marginal, act to dampen entrepreneurial vigour and favour sectors having low entry barriers and limited skill requirements, but less transformational potential for structural transformation and sustainable development;
    
5. Concurs that creating new momentum for economic growth and achieving decisive progress towards job creation and the expansion of opportunities for all, including women and youth, in least developed country economies will require supporting high-level skills and transformational entrepreneurship that is essential for harnessing the economic potential and benefits of globalization and technological progress;
    
6. Stresses that the extended use of information and communications technologies, including electronic commerce, should boost entrepreneurship among women, youth and young people in order to be an important enabler for growing entrepreneurial and development opportunities in the least developed countries, and calls for government policies to support and mainstream use, in cooperation with all the relevant local and international stakeholders, in order to implement these policies systematically to benefit the whole of society;
    
7. Acknowledges the importance of promoting development-oriented policies that enhance the role of medium-sized and large enterprises in promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization through balanced and robust local enterprise ecosystems, encompassing all types and sizes of firms, to generate mutually reinforcing production linkages;
    
8. Appreciates the analysis of gender aspects of entrepreneurship and structural transformation, highlighting the role of national policies and strategies in the least developed countries to support, as appropriate, women’s access to transformational entrepreneurial opportunities;
    
9. Encourages least developed country Governments to continue to pursue the creation of a conducive environment for enterprise development in both rural and urban areas by giving particular attention to policies that promote transformational entrepreneurship, including by giving importance to sustaining and scaling up of businesses as a priority objective of national entrepreneurship policies, and by aligning support to the stages of growth in a firm’s life cycle;
    
10. Encourages development partners for increased support to the least developed countries, as reflected in the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 2011–2020 (Istanbul Programme of Action), in enhancing productive capacity with concrete actions through development of infrastructure, energy, and science, technology and innovation and the private sector;
     
11. Invites donor countries and countries in a position to do so to replenish the UNCTAD Trust Fund for the Least Developed Countries, which serves as an important tool for UNCTAD to quickly and effectively respond to increasing demands from the least developed countries for its work;
     
12. Calls on the Secretary-General of UNCTAD to strengthen efforts in the dissemination of research findings and undertake policy dialogue with policymakers of the least developed countries and their development partners.