Trade and Development Board, 71st executive session

The seventy-first executive session of the Trade and Development Board will be held from 10 to 11 and 16 to 18 February 2022. The session will open on Thursday, 10 February, at 10 a.m.

If conditions permit, the session will be held with physical participation, in room XIX of the Palais des Nations, and remote participation, through a simultaneous interpretation platform, in the six official languages of the United Nations.

A link to the formal virtual meeting will be sent to registered participants, at the email address used for registration, one day in advance of the start of the session.

Key issues on the agenda

• Interdependence and development strategies in a globalized world 
  
  Deliberations will provide an opportunity to consider the Trade and Development Report 2021: From Recovery to Resilience – The Development Dimension. 
  
  The Trade and Development Report 2021 will examine the development dimension of the issues of recovery and resilience in the aftermath of the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
  
   
• Investment for development: Investing in sustainable recovery 
  
  The discussion will be informed by the latest UNCTAD research and policy analysis, as contained in the World Investment Report 2021: Investing in Sustainable Recovery. The report examines investment priorities for the recovery phase, identifies specific challenges that will arise with the roll-out of recovery investment plans and proposes a framework for policy action, the UNCTAD policy framework for investing in sustainable recovery, to address them. 
  
  The report also analyses the latest developments in terms of investment trends and national and international policies around the world. At the request of the General Assembly of the United Nations, investment in the Sustainable Development Goals is also discussed, including from the angle of capital markets and sustainable finance, to review global progress and propose possible courses of action. 
  
  In addition, the meeting will provide an opportunity for a briefing by the secretariat on the latest developments regarding trends and prospects in and policies on international investment.
   
• The Least Developed Countries Report 2021: The Least Developed Countries in the Post-COVID World - Learning from 50 Years of Experience
  
  Under the item, the Board will consider The Least Developed Countries Report 2021: The Least Developed Countries in the Post-COVID World - Learning from 50 Years of Experience.
  
  Over the last 50 years, most least developed countries have struggled to overcome the development challenges that led to the establishment of the category in 1971. Even their strong economic growth since the mid-1990s has generally been insufficient to redress their long-term income divergence with the rest of the world.
   
• Report on UNCTAD assistance to the Palestinian people 
  
  As in previous years, the UNCTAD report on assistance to the Palestinian people analyses key issues and recent developments in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The report highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of confrontations and the fiscal crisis triggered by the threat of annexation of large swathes of the West Bank.