The sustainable development of the world´s poorest countries will be the subject of an international conference in Brussels next year, as decided by a UN meeting in New York today. The Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee for the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-III) chose the topic after approving the provisional agenda and format for the Conference.
LDC-III, to be held in Brussels from 14 to 20 May 2001, will be hosted by the European Union.
The discussions in New York, which began on 24 July, resulted in a consensus on the need for a concrete, results-oriented conference that will have a real impact on the daily lives of the people in the 48 LDCs(1), who make up one tenth of the world´s population. It is essential that Brussels produce firm commitments and that the necessary funding be made available for LDC programmes, participants said.
This first meeting of the Preparatory Committee, under the chairmanship of Jacques Scavée (Belgium), brought together some 300 representatives of 84 countries and of UN specialized agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Committee will meet again in New York in April 2001.
Conference format : agenda approved
As decided this week by the Preparatory Committee, LDC-III will have two tracks -- intergovernmental, and civil society - each with its own added value and components, but all of them addressing poverty eradication, which has become the top priority of the international community. The entire process will be enriched by extensive interaction between the two tracks.
The intergovernmental track kicks off with a high-level event on poverty, to be held on the opening day. World leaders will focus on implementation of recent commitments made by the international community. This will be followed on the closing day of the Conference by an event with Heads of State. There will also be a series of interactive debates and country- and region-specific round tables organized by UNCTAD and other international organizations intended to elicit new commitments for LDCs. The debates will be on governance, peace and social stability; enhancing productive capacities; financing growth and development; international trade, commodities and services; human resource development and employment; social services delivery; and food security and sustainable natural resource management.
The civil society track consists of an NGO forum and a number of parallel events, including sessions on combating HIV/AIDS, electronic commerce, and an LDC Venture Capital Fund, as well as a parliamentarians caucus, meeting of mayors, women entrepreneurs forum, youth forum and business sector round table.
The Preparatory Committee also approved a provisional agenda for Brussels, focusing on the formulation of appropriate national and international policies and measures for the sustainable development of the least developed countries and their progressive integration into the world economy. In addition, the Conference will assess the 1990 Programme of Action adopted by the Second LDC Conference and review past international support measures in the areas of ODA, debt, investment and trade.
Domestic policy, productive capacity debated
At five interactive debates held during the meeting, representatives of the LDCs and their development partners, both bilateral and multilateral, explored a broad range of issues to be incorporated into the draft Programme of Action.
Participants in the debate on the domestic policy framework agreed on the need to develop sound domestic policies that would enable the LDCs to benefit fully from external support. Linkages were also needed between the domestic policy framework and international support measures. Given that the LDCs acquired a greater mastery of the macroeconomic policy framework during implementation of the first generation of structural adjustment programmes, their current concerns have to do with strengthening institutional capacity, political stability and good governance.
The debate on international support measures led to a consensus on the fact that donors have not honoured the commitment undertaken in the 1990 Programme of Action to devote 0.15% of their GNP to official development assistance (ODA). Only four countries - Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden - have met or surpassed that target, and ODA to the least developed nations has in fact fallen 23% since the early 1990s. The LDC representatives taking part in the debate warned against the temptation to use foreign direct investment (FDI) as a substitute for ODA. LDCs´ share of all FDI to developing countries remains minimal, at 1.5%, and thus can only complement official aid, not replace it.
While there is no disagreement about the need for a lasting solution to the external debt burden of the LDCs, which amounts to 90% of their combined GDP, opinions differ as to what that solution should consist of. The high level of indebtedness, exacerbated by payment arrears, and the various initiatives taken by the international community have proved inadequate. The LDCs want all their bilateral and multilateral debt to be cancelled so that they can invest in productive sectors.
Enhancing productive capacity is one way out of the vicious circle of poverty, concurred participants in a debate on that subject. Duty-free, quota-free market access for all LDC exports is equally important. One of the continuing objectives of these countries is to put an end to tariff and non-tariff barriers which frequently hinder their most competitive exports. The LDCs also stressed the need for an accelerated process of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO); currently only 29 of them are members.
In an interactive debate on social development, participants agreed that between now and Brussels, analyses should be prepared on the linkages between health and development, particularly with regard to AIDS and malaria. Over the past decade, HIV/AIDS has become the leading cause of death in the LDCs of central and southern Africa. Of the 34.3 million persons infected with AIDS worldwide, some 24.5 million are Africans. The consequences of this pandemic must also be measured in terms of their economic impact.
Information technology can play a leading role in resolving many of the problems faced by LDCs, said those taking part in the debate. However, in order for those countries to benefit from the technology, massive investment in education and training is required. This will take a long time to accomplish, given that almost half of all adults in the LDCs are illiterate, as opposed to one third in developing countries as a whole and only 1% in the developed world.
NGOs call for "honest" approach to poverty
Some 50 NGO delegates from both South and North who met in NY 24-26 July issued a statement addressed to the Preparatory Committee. "There is a serious danger that LDC-III will do nothing but reiterate a hollow set of promises", the statement says. Honesty is required in examining the causes of poverty and determining how to break the vicious circle. "Simply seeking to include the LDCs in a liberalized world economy without seriously addressing their problems will achieve nothing and will only ensure that the richer countries become even richer, with poorer countries getting poorer even faster", the NGOs insist. Some African LDCs, for example, are rich in natural resources but are not developing rapidly because of war. "Restricting trade in diamonds may be part of the solution, but the conflicts are also fueled by the international trade in arms produced in the North", according to the statement. "Development in these countries will never be possible if this question is not tackled head on."
To achieve a breakthrough, the NGOs say, the donor community should cancel debt; address "inequities" within the WTO trade arrangements; untie aid; and ban all arms sales. LDC governments, in turn, should "recover the moral authority through good governance in order to strengthen their hand in global negotiations". The Conference should be a "bottom-up" exercise building on the harsh daily reality of poverty, with people in the countries concerned having a say in decisions that affect their lives.
Ongoing preparatory process
The United Nations General Assembly designated the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Rubens Ricupero, as Secretary-General of the Conference. LDC-III is a UN system-wide conference, with UNCTAD serving as the secretariat.
At the international level, in addition to the Intergovernmental Preparatory Committee, the preparatory process has included several inter-agency meetings of UN institutions and bodies, discussing coordination and the agencies´ respective contributions to the Conference. A "consultative forum" comprising representatives of UN Member States, intergovernmental organizations, UN agencies and NGOs has also met to consider organizational and substantive issues, resource mobilization and other preparatory matters. At the regional and national levels, three regional expert meetings have been held (see Press Release TAD/INF/PR/051), and national preparatory committees have been established to draft national programmes of action.
(For background information, see A/CONF.191/IPC/12.)
