Vice-President of Benin Mariam Chabi Talata Zimé Yérima. Photo credit: Luxembourg at the UN on Twitter
High-level roundtables at the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha have urged the international community to adopt sustainable frameworks to enable countries that graduate from the status of LDCs to undergo an upward trajectory in their economic and social growth.
The roundtables also noted that LDCs are marginalized in trade and suffer direct impacts from global catastrophes, including climate change., while calling for the Doha Programme of Action to be implemented.
The thematic roundtables held during the Conference addressed key topics across eight core areas, including investing in people in LDCs to leave no one behind; leveraging the power of science, technology and innovation for the sustainable development of LDCs; structural transformation as a driver of prosperity in LDCs; enhancing the participation of LDCs in international trade and regional integration; addressing climate change and supporting the environment; sustainable recovery from the pandemic and building the resilience of LDCs against future shocks; resource mobilization and strengthened global partnerships for sustainable development in LDCs; and supporting sustainable and irreversible graduation from LDC category.
Addressing the closing session yesterday, Vice-President of Benin Mariam Chabi Talata Zimé Yérima, while disclosing the recommendations of Round Table 8, said more LDCs are fulfilling graduation criteria, and efforts must be renewed to facilitate their graduation from that category.
She added that after graduation, many countries face several crises and economic uncertainties, and the international community must ensure that graduation from the LDC status is irreversible and sustainable.
Meanwhile, speakers also touted the need to reform the international financial system, citing that vulnerability persisted even after countries graduated from the LDC category or into a higher per capita income category.
Also, ensuring universal and clean energy access in LDCs was seen as essential to drive high economic growth rates, structural transformation, building productive capacity and increasing their share of global exports.
According to Nancy Tembo, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Malawi, achieving the objectives of the DPOA would directly contribute to addressing the key challenges of our time climate change, poverty reduction, eliminating hunger and malnutrition, fostering peace and stability and addressing the debt burden for least developed countries.
She added that the impact of compounding crises, including COVID-19 conflicts and climate change, threatens to reverse decades of progress, pushing tens of millions of people into extreme poverty.
In other recommendations, delegates highlighted the role of inclusive and equitable quality education, including improved digital skills and literacy. They also emphasized the importance of education as a human right as it is vital to reducing poverty, advancing gender equality, addressing climate change, and achieving all the SDGs with women and girls, youth, businesses and farmers representing a vast potential.
The high-level sessions also recommended that LDCs be given more trade concessions to participate in global trade and that trade policies should be modified to carry all parties. The flow of funds from the global North to the South was also recommended to boost sustainable recovery from current economic woes.
