On 23 October, Professor Jose Antonio Ocampo, Chair of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP), participated at the “Towards UN LDC5: Recovery from COVID-19”. During the session “Financing the recovery in LDCs: what role for international co-operation?” Prof. Ocampo presented the CDP’s warning that LDCs are not on track achieving the SDGs even before Covid-19 and development financing for LDCs has fallen seriously short of required needs. He stated that LDCs are providing significant fiscal response to Covid-19, but lack of financing is real constraint and without meeting the immediate needs of these countries they face the real danger of falling even further behind. Debt suspension, scaling up of multilateral support from IMF and World Bank through grants, expanding productive capacity for sustainable development, ensuring fair access to medicines and vaccines and support to public health systems are a just few examples Prof. Ocampo provided. But he also stated that for LDCs to better prepare for future crises certain mid- and long-term changes are required. In its 2020 report the CDP proposed to reform the multilateral system to ensure a global transition towards equitable and sustainable development, create a Global Risk Pooling Reserve Fund for climate risks and a massive increase in SDRs for unconditional support during crisis with a special window for LDCs borrowing SDRs from development partners.

The meeting, jointly organized by the OECD Development Centre, FERDI and UN-OHRLLS, was held virtually on 21 and 23 October 2020 to discuss how LDCs should to tackle their vulnerabilities and leverage the scarce resources to recover from Covid-19.

More Information:
Link to Meeting website