"The international community will ultimately be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members", said Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, addressing the 24 July inaugural session of the Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee for the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries.
The Committee is meeting in New York from 24 to 28 July, under the chairmanship of Jacques Scavee (Belgium). The Conference, to be held in Brussels 14-20 May 2001, will be hosted by the European Union.
The greatest challenge for the international community, Mr. Ricupero added, is to deal with the credibility problem of its commitments to reversing the marginalization of the LDCs. The Global Programme of Action adopted by the Second LDC Conference in 1990 did not achieve its goals, and it is therefore "legitimate", he said, for the LDCs to ask whether LDC-III will not simply be just one more conference, at which new targets will be defined but not the means to act on them. The purpose of the Conference is not to conduct another assessment of the world economy and its implications for developing countries, as the commitments adopted at UNCTAD X in Bangkok last February remain valid and relevant, but rather to develop an innovative, results-oriented approach. A "bold but at the same time pragmatic vision" is thus required, he said.
The long-standing issues of improved market access, promoting investment in LDCs, debt relief and official development assistance will still be important at the Conference, he said; what might change is how they are dealt with. While not abandoning the search for global initiatives, the opportunity provided by the Conference should be used to elicit specific commitments from various development partners, traditional donors such as private sector entities, municipalities and civil society at large.
The Conference should lead to the adoption of a concise, operational final document, said Jean-David Levitte (France), speaking on behalf of the European Union. That document - the new Programme of Action -- should be "flexible enough to adapt to future changes in the global economic scene" and contain clear and measurable targets and implementation timeframes, added the President of the Group of 77 in New York, Chief Arthur C.I. Mbanefo (Nigeria).
The LDCs know what they expect from LDC-III, according to Mr. Ricupero. They want to reduce their structural handicaps, limit their vulnerability with a view to seizing new economic opportunities, and facilitate the involvement of all relevant actors -- Government, private sector and civil society. They also want to establish a post-Conference follow-up mechanism to ensure that, for each LDC, the national programme of action will be able to translate the new package of theoretical benefits into actual benefits. The Conference should, in other words, result in enhanced local productive capacities and improved human development indicators.
The European Union considers the eradication of poverty to be the central objective of the Brussels event, particularly because the situation in most of the LDCs has deteriorated, said Mr. Levitte. More than half their inhabitants survive on less than a dollar a day, and their average life expectancy is only 50 years, as opposed to 78 years in the industrialized countries. Chief Mbanefo called it "morally unacceptable" to neglect the economic and human potential of the least developed countries. They represent 10% of the world population but only 0.4% of world imports and 0.6% of world exports.
Mr. Levitte also stressed the weak productive capacity of the LDCs, their marginalization from private international trade and financial flows and their limited access to new technologies. "Given the heavy debt burden, this situation is particularly alarming, as unless the entire international community is mobilized, the LDCs risk becoming the cast-offs of globalization", he warned. Despite those countries´ best efforts, asserted A.K. Chowdhury (Bangladesh), coordinator of the LDCs, without significant international support measures they will be unable to meet the challenges of globalization. The extent of the development needs of the LDCs, and the weak capacity for growth of some of them, calls for the establishment of long-term partnerships.
The first session of the Preparatory Committee will be marked by interactive debates on such themes as domestic policy framework, international support measures, social development, and mechanisms for follow-up on the Conference. It will also work on the conference format to be followed in Brussels. The Committee will meet next in New York, in March 2001.
The preparatory process is being organized on the national, regional and global levels. In each LDC, a national preparatory committee has been set up to draft a national plan of action based on each country´s needs and priorities and comprising a national development strategy for the coming decade. The meeting of the Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee was preceded by three expert meetings: in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for English-speaking African LDCs (27-29 March 2000); in Kathmandu, Nepal, for Asian and Pacific LDCs (3-5 April); and in Niamey, Niger, for French-speaking LDCs (18-20 April).
The number of LDCs has almost doubled - from 25 to 48 - since the creation of this category by the United Nations in 1971. The category is based on a set of criteria linked to the following indicators: per capita GDP (under $800 in 1997); physical quality of life (health, nutrition, education); economic diversification (share of manufacturing in GDP, share of industry in the labour force, energy consumption and merchandise export concentration). These criteria are currently being revised by the Economic and Social Council, and a new set of criteria is expected to be adopted this year by the UN General Assembly. This forthcoming revision, the third in 30 years, is also likely to result in the adoption of a new criterion of economic vulnerability.