Third Conference on the
Least Developed Countries
Brussels,
Belgium,
15 May 2001
Statement on behalf
of
Mr. Nitin Desai,
Under-Secretary-General,
Department of Economic and
Social Affairs
United
Nations
Delivered by Ms. Yvette
Stevens,
Director, Office of the
Special Coordinator for Africa and the LDCs
Department of Economic and
Social Affairs
The Third LDC Conference represents a major turning point in the history
of the Least Developed Countries. Since the Second LDC Conference in 1990, we
have seen the unprecedented integration of the world through information and
communications technology, particularly the Internet, as well as through trade
and capital flows, particularly short term capital flows. Private capital flows
now dwarf public flows to developing countries through official development
assistance and multilateral credits. Regarding developing countries, the
attention of the world media and of the private financial sector has
progressively moved to a small group of high-growth economies on various
continents, to which most of the foreign direct investment and other private
capital outside the industrial world flows.
This is the backdrop against
which the present conference takes place. One of the most important functions
that this conference must play is to refocus world attention on the Least
Developed Countries.
Why should the world community, particularly the rich countries and the
private sector, focus on helping the Least Developed Countries address their
problems? Because the sheer
interconnectedness and rapid movement of goods, services, people and problems in
today’s globalising world conspires to make the problems of poor countries also
those of the rich countries.
National boundaries cannot
stop the HIV/AIDS virus, or the vectors of other diseases or the violence and
unrest born of poverty and misery. These problems sooner or later stealthily
seep through national frontiers and diminish the quality of life in other parts
of the globe. With the growing global interconnectedness we can be sure that it
will be sooner rather than later unless the world community joins forces with
the governments of LDCs to fight the root causes of these problems at the
country level, and to provide the enabling international environment for their
resolution. Today, therefore, the
problems of LDCs have direct consequences for all of us, no matter where we
live.
Many of the most severely
afflicted countries are LDCs, where these diseases have reached epidemic
proportions. These epidemics are
rooted in the poverty of these countries and they can also spread with speed and
severity to the industrial world.
Poverty and the competition for the control of minerals in these
countries leads to chronic conflicts and civil wars that wind up costing the
industrial countries and other countries of the affected regions far more in
terms of peace-keeping efforts and humanitarian aid than the cost of development
aid or of the risk-premiums that the private sector would require for investing
there.
For the United Nations entities that make up the Executive Committee on
Economic and Social Affairs, which is chaired by the Under-Secretary-General for
Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Desai, the Least Developed Countries continue
to be an essential constituency both for the United Nations’ policy work as well
as its operational activities for development at the global, regional and
country levels. I shall address
specifically the contribution that the Department of Economic and Social Affairs
makes and will continue to make to the Least Developed Countries.
Most of you are familiar
with the policy and normative role of the Department, which includes its very
visible function as the substantive secretariat for the Economic and Social
Council and its functional commissions as well as for the series of major United
Nations conferences and for the United Nations Action Plan for the Development
of Africa (UN-NADAF). For their part, developing countries and the LDCs in
particular are very familiar with and appreciative of the important contribution
made to their own development efforts by the country-level technical
cooperation, including advisory services, provided by the Department. I will
address how both the normative and
operational roles of the Department help LDCs.
An important contribution of
the normative work of DESA to the advancement of the LDCs is through its
substantive support to the Financing for Development Conference scheduled for
2002 in Monterrey, Mexico. The
Secretary-General’s report on Financing for Development calls for donor
countries to contribute rapidly and generously to the trust fund for the
integrated framework for trade-related technical cooperation in LDCs. The report
also calls for donor agencies to harmonize their policies and procedures and to
help improve the debt management capabilites of developing countries, including
LDCs .
Another part of the
normative role of the Department involves supporting the Committee for
Development Policy, which for the past thirty years, has been mandated to
identify which developing countries could be considered as “least
developed”. The Committee
classifies countries as least developed if they face structural impediments to
growth, either because of the nature of their economies or because of inadequate
human capital.
The Committee bases its
decisions on four criteria that are intended to reflect these impediments: (a)
per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of less than $900; (b) an Augmented
Physical Quality of Life Index (APQLI); (c) an Economic Vulnerability Index
(EVI); and (d) a maximum population size of 75 million. The EVI is aimed to
identify structural deficiencies while the APQLI is a composite indicator of
human resource capacity. To be recommended for addition to the list of LDCs, a
country must meet all four criteria.
To date, the Committee has classified 49 countries as LDCs, of which 34
are in Africa. At the 1990 LDC Conference, there were 41 countries classified as LDCs, of
which 28 were in Africa. This increase over the past decade highlights the
urgency for converting the Programme of Action emerging from the present
conference into concrete deeds.
These very characteristics
that define LDCs pose a major constraint not only on traditional growth
processes but also on these countries’capacity to take advantage of the new
opportunities offered by globalisation. As pointed out in the documentation for
this conference, the Least Developed Countries face not only a development
resources gap but also a gap in
capacity and skills. It is that gap that the Department helps the LDCs to fill
through its technical cooperation. The pressing need for human resources
development and capacity building in the LDCs cannot be met without additional
efforts by the international community in terms of both technical assistance and
financial resources. This implies that the capacity building and technical
cooperation programmes of the United Nations system – those of the United
Nations funds and programmes, regional commissions, and the specialized
agencies, and of DESA – are particularly important to and should focus on – the
special needs of the LDCs
As concerns the initiative
of UNCTAD on identifying “deliverables” in development cooperation for the LDCs,
DESA is currently contributing or plans to contribute to several of the
identified deliverables either directly or through related projects. I will
specifically address concrete deliverables by DESA in the areas of water,
energy, science and technology, governance, population research and statistical
capacity-building which are key development challenges for the
LDCs.
8.
DESA will also play a major
role in the deliverable identified for conflict prevention, management and
resolution for durable peace; particularly in the components on governance and
the rule of law; conflict risk assessment and conflict management.
9.
DESA is helping address the
digital divide in the population policy and research area in developing
countries, including LDCs, through a set of activities launched in 1999 called
the “Internet for Population Research,” which aim at promoting the effective use
and sound institutionalization of information and communication technologies by
population training and research centres in developing countries, while
fostering cooperation – particularly South-South cooperation – among the
institutions concerned. Two regional networks have been launched so far. One
called ‘Demoneta’, comprises six population research and training institutions
in francophone Western Africa in Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire,
Cameroon, and Togo. The other network links institutions in Asia. A third
network, comprising population research centres in the five Portuguese-speaking
countries in Africa as well as in Brazil and Portugal is currently at the
planning stage. In substantive terms, it is envisaged that the networks will
increasingly explore the use of information and communications technologies for
distance learning in population studies as well as for enhancing the role of
national population research institutes as public providers of high quality
population data and analyses.
In concluding, I wish to say
that DESA, along with its other United Nations partners, looks forward to the
outcomes of this landmark conference, particularly the Programme of Action,
which will serve as our roadmap for cooperating with the LDCs in this first
decade of the new Millennium. As I mentioned, since the 1990 LDC Conference, the
total number of LDCs has increased from 41 to 49 and the number of African LDCs
has increased from 28 to 34. During
this time only one country graduated from the category. It is our fervent hope
that, in contrast with the past decade, over the next ten years, with the joint
efforts of the LDCs themselves and the world community, a substantial number of
countries will be able to progress and prosper in the direction of graduation
from the category of LDCs. To
further that end, DESA will continue to work alongside its UN and other partners
in the normative, analytical and operational areas.