Monitoring of graduating and recently graduated countries

The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) monitors the development progress of countries that are scheduled to graduate from the LDC category, those that have been recommended for graduation but for which ECOSOC and/or the General Assembly have not yet acted, and those that have recently graduated, so that it can bring any concerns to the attention of ECOSOC.  The CDP’s monitoring system has recently been upgraded. Its “Enhanced Monitoring Mechanism” (EMM), which began being implemented, is organized around three areas:

-  regular monitoring;

- Crisis Response Process; and

- strengthened support for the countries being monitored.

1. Regular monitoring

The CDP’s monitoring is undertaken under the leadership of a country rapporteur appointed from among the CDP members.  Every year, the government submits a report and the CDP organizes consultation meetings with the government, the UN Resident Coordinator (RC), members of Inter-Agency Task Force on graduation (IATF) and other relevant organizations. The CDP then produces a monitoring report, which includes assessments of the macro-economic situation, performance against the LDC indicators and supplementary graduation indicators; identification of data gaps; assessments of productive capacity, country-specific risks and impacts of external shocks (such as COVID-19); and other relevant issues such as progress in trade negotiations or action on the issues that justified a longer than standard preparatory period or the extension of the period.

2. Crisis Response Process (CRP)

The CRP is a complement to the annual regular monitoring and is applied only when needed. It can be triggered by a request from the Government. The CDP may, if certain crisis indicators or thresholds are met, suggest that the government consider making the request.

Once the CRP is triggered, the CDP prepares a crisis assessment and submits it to the Government and to ECOSOC. If necessary, the CDP will, within its mandate and in consultation with the Government and relevant partners, take action to support the country, including potentially recommending the postponement of graduation. Based on the assessment, UN-OHRLLS may mobilize crisis management expertise across the relevant areas within the UN system.

3. Strengthened support

The results of the annual regular monitoring and, where applicable, the CRP, can be used as inputs to mobilize, in coordination with the government, support for graduating and recently graduated countries through the RC’s Office, Regional Commissions, other parts of the UN and development partners (including South-South cooperation partners). Governments may consider including the relevant findings of the monitoring process as issues to address in their Smooth Transition Strategies.

Monitoring reports on graduating and graduated countries can be found on the CDP website at https://bit.ly/LDC-monitoring.