Follow-up to the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries and preparations for the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries: Key development challenges facing the LDCs

GROUP OF 77
GENEVA

STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE GROUP OF 77 AND CHINA BY H.E. MR. RODOLFO REYES, AMBASSADOR AND PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF CUBA TO THE UNITED NATIONS OFFICE AND OTHER INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IN GENEVA, AT THE EXECUTIVE SESSION OF THE TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT BOARD, ON AGENDA ITEM 2 (A) - FOLLOW-UP TO THE THIRD UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FOURTH UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES: KEY DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES FACING THE LDCS
(Geneva, 8 June 2010)

H.E. Ambassador Jean Feyder,
President of the Trade and Development Board
Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD,
Ms. Puri, Representative of UN-OHRLLS
Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates

I make this statement on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

The battle against endemic poverty and chronic hunger in the world's 49 LDCs is a moral obligation to all nations, but especially to the richest ones.

One fifth of the humankind is poor;

One forth of the nations in the world is LDC;

70 % of them are in Africa;

All LDCs belong to our Group.

In 2015, the LDCs population, based on current trends, will reach 942 million. This means that the number of people living on less than a dollar a day in the Least Developed Countries will reach more than 470 million by that 2015, if poverty is reduced to halve in the target year for achieving the MDGs. But that will not happen, and the number of poor people will be higher.

LDCs - with their extreme poverty and critically poor social infrastructure such as education and health facilities - are not prepared to achieve the MDGs without a strong assistance of the international community.

The UN Conference on LDCs IV will be held next year. We all look forward to how this meeting of the TDB can contribute to the successful results of the LDC IV.

LDCs lack productive capacities, advanced technologies, financial resources, physical infrastructures, market access, and institutional capabilities. All these are crucial factors to develop competitiveness and benefit from trade. The recent crises have added more difficulties to those countries to insert their productions into the international trade flows.

LDCs cannot make progress by themselves; they need a great and permanent assistance from international community. We must do an honest assessment of the past, and find out the errors to definitively project concrete actions to help the poorest countries in the world.

Mr. Chairman,

I'm going to mention only some areas where we consider UN LDC IV will have to take decisions. The distinguished Ambassador Dinesh Bhattarai, Permanent Representative of Nepal and Coordinator of LDCs Group, has given us an accurate and comprehensive background of the LDCs situation and needs. The G 77 and China fully supports his statement.

In market access, Duty Free/Quota Free has to be effective, independently if there is a conclusion of the Doha Round.

Investors should support the UN efforts and should invest in strategic sectors for LDCs, transferring know-how and technologies to facilitate the diversification of export incomes. Most of FDI has gone into extraction industries, which have the least impact on development. Many productive sectors have enormous potential to FDI.

A master plan of agricultural development has to be urgently considered. Poverty in rural areas in those countries has not comparison with any other human misery.

Infrastructure deficiency has to be analyzed. Efficient and affordable energy systems, according to individual country, access to telecommunication, physical connections, among other, should be supported.

There is the need to consolidate permanent and regular technical and financial assistances through Aid for Trade initiative, Enhanced Integrated Framework and other mechanism that can be proposed. Official Development Aid has to growth in a sustained manner.

South-South trade and cooperation can play an important role in the moment where important developing actors are pushing global economic. But the responsibility of industrialized countries with the poverty in the world can no be forgotten nor put apart. South- South cooperation will be always a complement of the North-South assistance.

Taking into account that 16 LDCs are Land Locked Developed Countries, the LDCs IV should deal on how to improve physical, financial and trade related infrastructures to attract investments, reduce costs and facilitate transportation of goods from and to those countries.

As in all developing countries, tourism and migrants have become one very important source of revenues and employment in LDCs. So, these activities are other important issues on which support and cooperation can help LDCs to strengthen their economic possibilities.

Mr. Chairman

Palestine should be treated as LDCs according to resolution, 43/178 titled: Assistance to the Palestinian people. It is important to highlight that Palestine is an special case, Palestinian economy is a war torn economy, there is a humanitarian crisis, although the Palestinian economy's performance indicators in various years from 2000- 2009 ranked within the category of lower middle-income developing countries; its sustained development is obstructed by structural impediments, many of which are common to Least Developed Countries (LDCs). It is about time that Palestinian economy would grow as any normal economy without the challenges imposed by a foreign occupation.

Mr. Chairman

We hope that this kind of meeting can contribute to the UN determination of helping developing countries and LDCs to take away poverty.

We also expect that your report of this meeting will include all the valuable ideas of all members, and that the people involved in taking decisions in favor of LDCs in the coming time can take them into account.

Thank you.