FFD4 side event: Transformative impact and mobilizing partnerships for sustainable trade development in the least developed countries to meet global development aspirations
The LDCs continue to face challenges that hinder their chances of achieving Sustainable Development, compounded by declining Official development assistance, rising debt vulnerabilities and tariff uncertainty. Many are challenged with insufficient and inadequate financial resources to manoeuvre today's global crises. As the LDCs continue to wrestle with the complex questions posed by a fast changing and highly uncertain global environment, the role of the EIF is more important than ever to help revive their economies with support tailored to their specific needs and challenges.
The EIF is committed to play a central role in helping the LDCs address constraints inhibiting their capacity to participate in trade as a means for sustainable economic development and poverty reduction. To make this possible, adequate financing resources are needed – primarily through grants from the EIF Trust Fund.
Objective
Using the successes of the EIF partnership as a springboard, this side event will serve as a platform to take forward the Taskforce's recommendation on reinvigorating the EIF partnership, including on pledging resources in support of the LDCs' trade and investment priorities through EIF Phase Three.
More specifically, this 90-minute event will:
- Highlight Transformative Impact and Exchange Best Practices: Facilitate the exchange of best practices among partners on tackling the development challenges faced by the LDCs. In addition, share the unique transformative impacts and catalytic results from the implementation of the EIF programme, including setting up institutional structures and Aid for Trade coordination; leveraging resources; and supporting trade mainstreaming and productive capacity development in the LDCs to date.
- Present the EIF Phase Three Programme Framework: Share the Programme Framework and strategy of EIF Phase Three, including the approach to leveraging resources, strengthening LDC ownership and ensuring value for money.
- Reinvigorate the EIF partnership and pledge support: Donors and partners are to announce funding to the EIF Trust Fund for EIF Phase Three and discuss innovative financial mechanisms to scale up development finance for the LDCs.
Rebeca Grynspan, of Costa Rica, became UNCTAD's eighth Secretary-General on 13 September 2021 and is the first woman to lead the organization.
Prior to her UNCTAD appointment, she was the Ibero-American secretary-general from 2014 to 2021, also the first woman to head the organization. During her mandate, she has coordinated the 22-member Iberoamerican Conference and led four key summits of Heads of State and Government.
In 2010 she was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and prior to that was UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Grynspan served as Vice-President of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998. She was also Minister of Housing, Minister Coordinator of Economic and Social Affairs, and Deputy Minister of Finance. In 2021 she was named Special International Advisor to the newly created Economic and Social Council of Argentina and invited to join as member of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
In addition to her experience as a lecturer and advisor to several international organizations, she has been actively involved in key United Nations initiatives, such as the Millennium Project's Task Force on Poverty and Economic Development and the High-level Panel on Financing for Development.
In 2014 and 2015, she was recognized as one of the 50 leading intellectuals of Latin America. And she was recognized as one of the 100 most powerful women in Central America by Forbes magazine.
Ms Grynspan holds a degree in Economics by the University of Costa Rica and a MSc in Economics by the University of Sussex. She has been awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Salamanca, the University of Extremadura and the European University of Madrid in recognition of her outstanding professional achievements.
