By Amir Dossal
President and CEO, Global Partnerships Forum
Partnerships can be at the heart of transforming LLDCs’ growth trajectory, enhancing economic resilience, and empowering them to achieve the SDGs.
Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) are some of those ‘least discovered’ among investors. These new emerging economies face complex challenges due to their unique geographical limitations, but also offer remarkable investment opportunities as frontier markets. The population of the LLDCs is forecast to almost double, from 590 million in 2024 to over 1 billion by 2060. That presents considerable opportunities that can be unlocked by connecting international investors with country-based partners. The key for this is partnership building.
Buttressing investment promotion with partnership building and coordination.
Investment promotion and facilitation are an established part of a robust investment ecosystem. Typically, this involves offering targeted incentives, adopting investor-friendly policies, and providing support services tailored to LLDCs, ensuring seamless entry and expansion for investors. This can also involve equipping LLDCs to tap into global markets by providing market research, trade facilitation, and technical support to meet international standards, elevate product quality, and enhance export readiness.
Yet effectively encouraging investments requires an important further step in partnership building and coordination to be impactful. Through targeted workshops, forums, and networking opportunities, we can better support collaboration among stakeholders, encourage best practice sharing, and enable the formation of joint projects aligned with sustainable development objectives.
Country-based partnerships
Recognizing the need for innovative solutions, a Country-Based Partnerships Facility concept could help to unlock new opportunities and accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through customized support tailored for LLDCs. By channeling capital, boosting exports, and fostering diverse partnerships, such an approach could offer a practical and scalable approach to amplify existing national efforts and advance LLDCs on the global stage.
A Partnerships Facility involves creating an attractive investment landscape in the LLDCs, drawing in both domestic and foreign capital through incentives, streamlined regulations, and dedicated public-private partnerships that make investment seamless and profitable. By providing technical assistance, market access support, and enabling trade agreements, a Facility could help LLDCs diversify their economies, increase their presence in global markets, and drive competitiveness in new and existing sectors. Serving as a powerful collaboration platform, such a Facility could bring together governments, private sector entities, civil society, and international partners to drive shared goals, exchange knowledge, and mobilize resources for impactful projects aligned with the SDGs.
Partnerships are key.
At the country level, partnerships are needed for multistakeholder platforms to work closely with a diverse range of partners to ensure comprehensive support and strategic alignment. This would include development partners, investment leaders, academic and research institutions, business and industry associations, professional services firms, technology innovators, and foundations and philanthropic partners.
The pragmatics of unlocking investments.
Behind each investment decision is an individual. Key to unlocking the decision to invest in a new emerging economy must be Partnership Brokerage Services that work with individuals to guide such decision making. These can serve as a gateway for the private sector to invest in a country. Activities involved in such services include needs assessments and stakeholder consultations to tailor interventions to the specific requirements of each LLDC. It can also involve mobilizing financial resources from donors, development banks, and the private sector. Building institutional capacity is important, to effectively manage and sustain operations of the Facility, as is establishing a Knowledge Network for stakeholders through, for instance, an online Partnerships Portal. Instituting risk mitigation mechanisms is another important activity, including through capacity building and training, regulatory compliance, stakeholder engagement and communication, and proactive risk management. Monitoring and Evaluation is also instrumental to tracking progress, measuring impact, and ensuring accountability. The Facility would complement national strategies by supporting existing mechanisms, especially on investment and trade promotion.
Partnerships can be at the heart of transforming LLDCs’ growth trajectory, enhancing economic resilience, and empowering them to achieve the SDGs. By creating an environment conducive to investment, fostering exports, and bringing together diverse partners, a Country-Based Partnerships Facility, for instance, could drive inclusive growth, innovation, and sustainable development.
Amir Dossal is President & CEO of the Global Partnerships Forum – a not-for-profit knowledge platform providing changemakers with tools to build innovative partnerships for the SDGs. He served as Executive Director of the UN Office for Partnerships, which he established in 1998 to manage the $1 billion gift by media mogul Ted Turner. Amir is a founding Commissioner of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development and has served as a Distinguished Fellow with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Health and Healthcare. Amir is a co-founder of the Pearl Initiative, Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development, and Global Mental Health Task Force.
