About LDCs
Executive SummaryThe least developed countries are the poorest countries in the world. They are officially designated as "least developed" by the General Assembly of the United Nations, i.e. by the world community as a whole, on the basis of a number of agreed criteria. There are currently 48 of them, and they have a combined population of 610.5 million, 13.2% of all developing countries with a population of 4,636.6 million and 10.5% of the world total. In the development efforts of the UN, they receive particular attention, since their development needs are even greater than those of other developing countries.
Efforts to give particular attention to the most disadvantaged countries of the planet began in the mid-1960s when UNCTAD was in the process of being born, and the first resolution on the least developed countries (LDCs) was adopted at UNCTAD's second conference in 1968. Only three years later, the General Assembly approved the first list of LDCs, which at that time included 24 countries. The criteria used to determine the countries in greatest need were per capita GDP, share of manufacturing in total GDP, and the adult literacy rate. In the following years, the criteria were revised and refined to include the augmented quality of life index, the economic diversification index and population size, but at the same time the number of countries included in the list rose steadily, reaching 48 in 1994. It was of course hoped that, as development efforts had an impact, countries would one by one "graduate" from the LDC group as their level of development rose, but in fact in the last 25 years only one country has succeeded in doing so - Botwsana in 1994.
In 1981, as a result of a resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the basis of a recommendation by UNCTAD, the first UN Conference on the LDCs was held in Paris, at the invitation of the French Government. At that Conference, the international community unanimously adopted a Programme of Action for the LDCs for the 1980s,which set out guidelines for domestic action by the LDCs themselves and international support measures. Despite the efforts of the LDCs in terms of policy reform and structural transformation and despite the support provided by a number of donors in the areas of aid, debt and trade, the economic situation of the LDCs actually deteriorated in the course of the decade, and the General Assembly, once again on the basis of a recommendation by UNCTAD, decided to convene a second Conference. This Conference was held in September 1990, again in Paris, and it produced the Paris Declaration and a Programme of Action for the 1990s. The General Assembly decided to convene the Third United Nations Conference on the LDCs in the year 2001.
The
following countries are designated by the United Nations as least developed: |