Where is the LDC group heading in the future?
The international community has placed strong emphasis on accelerating the process of graduation from the least developed countries (LDC) category, i.e. the process through which countries that are LDCs eventually stop receiving special LDC treatment from its development partners thanks to their steady development. The international community has repeatedly set targets for the number of LDCs that graduate in the near future. However, the international economic and geopolitical context has become increasingly challenging for LDCs, and therefore the path towards eventually achieving graduation has become more difficult for LDCs to tread. This has led several countries that could potentially graduate to ask for deferral (postponement) of their graduation. Development partners have reacted on an ad hoc basis, as there are no clear rules of how to process these requests and react to them.
This increasingly challenging context for LDCs and lack of clear rules on how to react to reluctance to graduation have led to two parallel types of questioning on the side of the international community concerning LDCs. First, how should the process of graduation and requests for deferral of graduation be dealt with by the development partners of the LDCs? Second, what will the LDC group look like after the current wave of graduation takes place? In other words, how will the main development challenges of the remaining LDCs change and how should the international community respond to them?
At the end of this course, delegates will have gained knowledge of:
- Provide participants with updated information on the present situation of the graduation process and on existing proposals to reform the process.
- Share analysis on the likely future development challenges of the LDC group.
- Show how UNCTAD can help LDCs to better tread their path towards graduation.
- Provide bases for the future positioning of countries (both LDCs and their development partners) on policies, programmes and initiatives specifically targeted for the LDCs.
- Latest discussions and policymaking initiatives on the graduation process.
- The likely future shape of the LDC group.
- The outlook for the international treatment of the LDCs group over the medium term.
