Joint project of 5 UN agencies (UNIDO, ILO, ITC, UNCTAD, AND UNOPS) financed by Switzerland aims to expand Lao PDR´s productive performance in tourism, handicrafts, organic agriculture
Istanbul, 8 May 2011 - Titled "Development of productive capacities and trade: the key to inclusive and sustainable growth", a special event on Monday, 9 May, will feature addresses by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of eight United Nations agencies. This special event will take place from 6.15 to 8.15 p.m. in Çamlica Hall at the Istanbul Conference Center. Participants will present a joint concept note describing the aims of the United Nations Chief Executive Board (UN-CEB) Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity. The Cluster was created in 2008 as a mechanism to combine the work of various United Nations agencies in a coordinated fashion. The aim is to spur economic growth, reduce poverty and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals in developing countries, particularly in the least developed countries (LDCs).
In recent years the Cluster has advocated that greater attention be given to achieving sustainable, more robust economic progress in LDCs by improving their productive capacities - that is, the abilities of their economies to produce broader ranges of goods for domestic sale and export, and more sophisticated goods. According to the Least Developed Countries Report 2010, an UNCTAD publication, LDCs often rely on exports of raw natural materials and limited varieties of basic agricultural goods, making them vulnerable to boom-bust cycles. The Cluster calls for more international aid and effective government strategies to transform LDC economies so that they rely less on commodities, create more and better jobs, and spread the benefits of economic growth more widely throughout their populations.
The concept note calls on the international community to "deliver on existing commitments and increase the allocation of official development assistance to ensure more support to the production and trading sectors and develop new financing mechanisms, including through domestic resource mobilization, to back the development of productive capacities and business opportunities".
It also calls for efforts to "grant preferential market access and reduce tariff peaks and tariff escalation in order to make LDC exports commercially meaningful and beneficial for the development of productive capacities and growth in general".
Further, it recommends that steps be taken to "refocus economic and finance policies aimed at promoting both domestic and foreign investment that enhances the productive, technological and trading capacities of developing countries, in particular of LDCs".
To put the concept into practice, the UN-CEB Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity is expected to announce an inter-agency project intended to develop a more advanced tourism industry in the Lao People´s Democratic Republic and thereby, to boost progress in the manufacture and sale of handicrafts - especially silk goods - and organic agriculture, both through tourism and export. Funding will be provided by the Government of Switzerland.
The project, entitled "Enhancing sustainable tourism, clean production and export capacity in the Lao People´s Democratic Republic," aims at a well-designed delivery of assistance from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the International Trade Centre, the International Labour Organization, UNCTAD and the United Nations Office for Project Services.
These efforts will be coordinated with the Lao Government´s National Integrated Framework Governance Structure to ensure that the project is compatible with Lao policy, that synergies are developed with government programmes and that efficient teamwork occurs.
