Anwarul K. Chowdhury is the Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. He spoke about development aid and its effectiveness, governance, remittances, brain drain and other issues relating to LDCs in October 2006 with Melissa Gorelick and George Simpson of the UN Chronicle.

What are the factors that designate a country as least developed?

In 1971, when the United Nations General Assembly first decided to set up a category for countries it considered the weakest and poorest of the international community, 25 fit the LDC criteria. Over the years, these criteria have been refined in an effort to make it more worthwhile and meaningful. There are currently three tests to determine an LDC. The first and most important condition is per capita income. This per capita computation has been adjusted every year based on the current economic situation, the rate of inflation and the value of currency. Second is the human assets index, indicating the level of education, literacy, health conditions, women's empowerment and other relevant indicators. The third is the economic vulnerability index-to determine how a country is able to protect itself against external vulnerability, such as currency fluctuations, economic depressions, falling commodity prices, etc. Once these three factors are combined, there is a very complex system that the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP) uses to judge each eligible country. This is done every three years, including evaluating the list for "graduation" eligibility. A country having these three criteria is considered an LDC, and if it surmounts any two of them, it is then eligible for graduation.

Another important aspect of the graduation process is the recent decision of the General Assembly concerning the concept of a "smooth transition"-a period of three years-for eligible LDCs to be more comfortable with the situation following graduation. Graduating LDCs would like that the UN system and other development partners will come together during this transition period. We believe that graduating from the list should be seen as a recognition of these countries' efforts for doing well. This year, the Committee has identified five more countries for graduation, which will be up for a final decision in three years' time. In 2004, Cape Verde and the Maldives were identified for graduation; Samoa is up for a decision this year. But despite this good news, the number of LDCs has doubled in the last three decades. We now have 50 LDCs on the list.

What are the reasons for the increase in the number of LDCs?

Many of the reasons have been beyond the control of LDCs. The global economic system has an impact, as well as commodity prices, conflicts and now HIV/AIDS-all these things have made the economic and social development process of LDCs much more difficult. During the last decade, these countries have been unable to benefit from the inexorable globalization process that we are experiencing. They were so far down at the bottom rung of the ladder that it was simply not possible for them to take advantage of it.

Another constraint has been the lack of clear accountability and transparency in the use of development assistance. In the past, evaluations by development partners or national authorities were not very well established-there were few ways to track how aid was being used. There was also a lack of prioritization in the use of development assistance. Aid was engaged sometimes in big cosmetic projects, such as building big dams or bridges, and not in focusing on human development. I would also say that truly committed national leadership with a vision was lacking. This is an area that still needs attention, and the United Nations is working on that. These are some of the reasons why those original LDCs stayed on the list, except for the graduation of Botswana, while new countries were added.

In what ways do you think international aid is useful or not?

Least Developed Countries are structurally very weak. Their ability to attract foreign investments is not at all developed, and they are disadvantaged due to many other factors like the heavy burden of external debt. For these countries, foreign aid is a basic ingredient for development. But there are negative sides to development assistance. I do believe that foreign aid can sometimes create a very unacceptable dependency.

The biggest issue with development assistance is very often how it is used; for instance, aid conditionality can be a problem. In these cases, donors set the priority, and effectiveness is reduced by lack of coordination among them. So, the untying of aid is one of the key priorities for LDCs. One of the alternatives in practice has been development assistance through budget support. My Office is looking into the experiences of LDCs that have received budget support. Some partners like the United Kingdom are already strongly in favour of it. But we have to see whether it really helps or whether it creates a kind of dependency-a reason not to develop your own capacity to raise internal revenue.

The bottom line is that LDCs need development assistance, especially if they are to realize the Millennium Development Goals. If you ask them to take serious plans and programmes, say to eradicate malaria, reduce poverty or eliminate the HIV/AIDS pandemic, all of these require resources that they do not have. In the long-term, however, I do believe that one of the objectives of development in LDCs should be to gradually reduce aid dependency. While the general tendency is to ask for more aid, if an LDC can use its present level of development assistance effectively, and if it can target the grassroots and have the right priorities, it will get more out of each dollar it is getting. Foreign aid, or official development assistance (ODA) as we call it, should be seen as money invested for purposeful endeavours to improve the lot of the
common people and their quality of life.

Is the drain of human and physical resources still a concern for LDCs?

One has to guard against looking at migrants' remittances as a substitute for development assistance. Remittances, at the end of the day, remain private money for private use. But the other side of the remittance scenario is the "brain drain"-the migration of resources away from Least Developed Countries. The current effort is to see how a brain drain can become a "brain gain". How can you attract the skilled people, who have left to become doctors, engineers, scientists? People who have found a better lifestyle will stay where they are. But if you can attract them, maybe not for 100 per cent of their time but for three months a year, then you get the benefit of these skilled people to share their expertise. Some in the academic fields already do this, going on sabbatical and so forth; and doctors, who have their own practices, in some cases give medical services in their home countries free of cost. Also, this new development of information and communications technology (ICT) is attracting many young people to go back. India, for example, has benefited tremendously from the Silicon Valley engineers, and Bangladeshi migrants to the United States and Europe have even gone back home to set up ICT-related training institutes. There is the possibility of a brain gain in a globalized world. We simply have to allow LDCs the chance to benefit from this by initiating opportunities-which takes resources-and then channelling them correctly.

What role could an enhanced civil society partnership play in the development of LDCs?

Soon after my Office was established in 2002, we initiated a conscious effort to establish a close relationship with civil society and the private sector, as a key element of our support for LDCs. Civil society can support these countries both at the national level through grass-roots programmes and projects, and at the global level by highlighting the concerns of LDCs, profiling their interests and lobbying donors. I believe that if we can generate enough interest in the support given to LDCs by civil society groups, a lot can be achieved. For the recent mid-term review of the Brussels Programme of Action-a ten-year initiative adopted in 2001 by the United Nations to advocate LDCs-we organized a civil society hearing by the UN General Assembly. We also had a civil society forum in Geneva in July to engage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) located there. We are also working directly with NGOs in the Least Developed Countries, which are emerging as significant development partners. We are urging the LDC Governments to be more inclusive and broad-based in their development efforts. For this reason, NGOs to a greater extent participate in many national forums in LDCs.

Following the mid-term review, the United Nations is developing a major global advocacy campaign for LDCs, in partnership with NGOs, in particular with LDC Watch. Created in 2001 and headquartered in Brussels, this NGO submits an annual monitoring report to the UN Economic and Social Council as an independent assessment of the progress in LDCs. This is an important role for civil society to move into. It is essential to draw global attention to LDCs because they too often lack a voice. Civil society can be a very effective partner in this effort. The challenge is big, but we must keep trying.