15th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: Ministerial meeting of the least developed countries
16 September 2021
Your Excellency Mr. Sosten Gwengwe, Minister of Trade of Malawi,
Your Excellency Ambassador Robert Salama, Permanent Representative of Malawi to the United Nations in Geneva and coordinator of the Group of the Least Developed Countries in Geneva,
Dear Paul Akiwumi, Director of Africa and the LDCs at UNCTAD,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, let me thank you for your kind words of welcome. It is my pleasure to address the Group of the Least Developed Countries during the first week of my mandate as Secretary-General of UNCTAD. This is yet another example of the close link between your Group and our organization. And please let me emphasize today, at this, our first official meeting together my hope and commitment to work as hard as I can in my role as Secretary-General of UNCTAD, in the advancement of the projects and dreams of the LDC Group.
That said, it is now my turn to welcome you all to this Ministerial Meeting of the LDCs, which as you know is being held in preparation of the 15th session of UNCTAD
This Ministerial Meeting takes place at a critical juncture in the history of the group, which goes back exactly 50 years ago with the creation of the LDC category, an achievement promoted and sought after by UNCTAD.
At present, your countries find themselves mired in the dire consequences of the multiple crises originating from the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis which is global in nature, but which has been particularly pernicious for the developing world. Looking forward, your countries are negotiating a new plan of action for the next decade with their development partners, a plan which seeks to reverse the setbacks this pandemic has produced and to look beyond, towards the 2030 Agenda.
But let me emphasize this: LDCs are not alone in this critical juncture. We at UNCTAD were there 50 years ago, we are there today, and we will be there tomorrow. If you allow me, I would like to now turn to each of these perspectives (past, present, and future) to highlight possible routes of collaboration and ways out of this juncture.
Let me start with the past. UNCTAD’s original research and policy analysis on the special needs of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries, led to the establishment of the LDC category through a decision of the United Nations General Assembly in 1971.
Many of the challenges faced by LDCs still linger today, 50 years on, with high vulnerability to external shocks that in turn translate into low levels of labour productivity, high poverty rates and insufficient human capital formation.
Consequently, the income and development gap between most LDCs and other developing countries has widened. Despite some improvements since the turn of the millennium, only a handful of LDCs have achieved stronger economic growth than the world average.
For the rest of LDCs, income divergence persisted even prior to the pandemic. Unfortunately, given the divergent global recovery which is following the COVID-19 crisis, this inequality will most likely increase further.
As a consequence, in the 26 years since 1994, from 53 countries only six countries have graduated out of the LDCs category. The graduation target of the Istanbul Programme of Action has therefore already been missed.
Nonetheless, progress has indeed happened. Before the COVID-19 crisis, 5 LDCs were expected to graduate between here and 2024, and though the pandemic has most likely postponed these dates, it is important to celebrate every inch of progress we have achieved and can achieve.
Over the last 50 years, UNCTAD has continuously supported LDCs to embark on a sustainable development path. UNCTAD has been actively working with LDCs across its three main pillars of engagement, namely: research and analysis, technical cooperation and consensus building.
Research and analysis: UNCTAD has been responsible for the preparation of the only regular long-term publication series dedicated exclusively to the development challenges of the LDCs. This is The Least Developed Countries Report, which we have been producing continuously since 1984. It brings unique and original analysis, information and statistics on economic and social developments in the LDCs. It is widely recognized in policy circles as an authoritative source of research and policy analysis and regularly points to new and emerging aspects of the development challenges of LDCs and related proposals for international support measures.
In the area of technical cooperation: UNCTAD provides technical assistance to LDCs in all of its areas of expertise, including trade policy and customs administration, financing for development and debt management, foreign direct investment policy, science, technology and innovation, and productive capacities development, among others.
Consensus-building: UNCTAD has been at the forefront of major policy initiatives in favour of LDCs, such as trade preferences and debt relief. And our fora and conferences are valuable opportunities for LDCs to join forces and make clear demands to the international community at large.
Lastly, for those LDCs that have embarked in the process of graduation out of the LDC category, we at UNCTAD have also provided support, by preparing Vulnerability Profiles, which provide in-depth country-specific diagnostics of major development challenges of countries likely to graduate in the following years, and set the basis for a strategy for these countries to achieve “graduation with momentum”.
Dear friends,
I turn now to the present. LDCs continue to struggle greatly with the consequences of COVID-19. While your countries have been able to devise innovative ways of dealing with the emergency, they have not escaped from the ruinous economic and social effects of the pandemic. Last year the LDCs experienced their worst economic setback in 30 years. In turn, this caused the reversal of development gains so hardly won in the previous years, especially in the fields of poverty, hunger, education and health.
Moreover, the pandemic has once again exposed deep international inequalities which beset LDCs. To date only 2% of the LDC population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, a rate that is just one tenth of the vaccination rate of other developing countries and only but a fraction of the vaccination rate of developed countries.
We must recognize that multilateral action has been insufficient to mitigate these gaps and asymmetries, specially in regards to the low levels of vaccine donations COVAX has received, which at around 230 million doses, is very far from the 2 billion goal it set itself at the beginning of the year.
On the financial front action has been relatively better, with the approval last year of a historic G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, and the recent $650 billion emission of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). We celebrate these efforts but still only $15.5 billion of the $650 billion emission of the SDRs goes to LDCs, i.e. only 2.3%. I know that there are current plans to set a system where LDCs can receive more support through SDRs, be it through Multilateral Development Banks or the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust at the IMF. You can rest assured that we will do all we can to advance these multilateral initiatives in your favour.
Dear friends,
Looking forward, it is clear LDCs need something more than a recovery: you need a new development trajectory.
At UNCTAD, building upon all the research we have garnered over the years through our LDC Report, we are convinced that the building of new productive capacities and the maintenance and full utilization of existing ones are at the core of a new development trajectory. This should all be done in an inclusive and sustainable manner to ensure that all LDC citizens are able to participate in the benefits that enhanced productive capacities bring to job creation, income generation, productivity, and value addition, among others.
In this regard, UNCTAD is calling for all LDCs to undertake National Productive Capacities Gap Assessments to evaluate the areas where they are further advanced or lagging behind.
These National Productive Capacities Gap Assessments leverage UNCTAD’s Productive Capacities Index as a practical tool to benchmark and measure countries’ level of productive capacities across multiple dimensions. Based on these assessments, targeted efforts and policy interactions can be designed and implemented to fill these productive capacities gaps.
A new generation of International Support Measures (ISMs) could also be developed so that development partners align their efforts with this new development trajectory. In this respect, UNCTAD is advocating for a renewed set of international principles on how best to align ISMs with the development needs and realities of the LDCs.
Furthermore, and beyond what I already mentioned in respect to multilateral responses to the pandemic, LDCs and the international community are at present in the process of negotiating the Doha Programme of Action for the Decade 2022-2031, which should provide the broad framework for future national and international development policies for LDCs. This Doha Programme of Action will be crucial, as its implementation will coincide with the last period of pursuit of the 2030 Agenda
Lastly, UNCTAD will also continue to assist LDCs in international fora such as the WTO. Our collaboration on preference utilization and rules of origin issues, or on technology transfer and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights, are just two tangible examples of our commitment in this respect.
Dear excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
UNCTAD stands ready to accompany LDCs in the implementation of the new Plan of Action and in the enactment of policies that accelerate the process of sustainable development, by drawing a new, more vigorous, development path.
For this purpose, the mandate that will be given to our organization during out next Ministerial Conference will be very important. UNCTAD15 will establish the priorities for our work for the coming four years. It is our conviction that UNCTAD’s mandate on LDCs will be strongly reaffirmed in the outcome document of UNCTAD15, across the three pillars of our work.
You will hear an update on the preparatory process in a few minutes, to be given by the Coordinator of the LDC Group in Geneva.
The Ministerial Declaration of the LDC Group which you have been discussing over the last four months and which you will adopt today will provide a major input to the deliberation of the Conference. I therefore wish you success in your deliberations of today.
Please be reassured of UNCTAD’s firm commitment to accompany LDCs throughout these processes.
I insist on what I said at the beginning: I give you my word that I will do all that I can in my role as Secretary-General of UNCTAD to advance the development agenda of Least Developed Countries. The task ahead is great, and so we must begin.
Thank you
