According to an official document of the UN, at present, 49 LDCs are UN members, out of which 33 belong to the African continent, 15 others belong to Asian and Oceanic regions while one is from the Americas. Several of these LDCs are either landlocked or sea-locked, thus posing formidable challenges and hurdles in the process of development. Compared to the living standards of people from the developed world, those residing in LDCs, particularly in its rural parts, lead a sub-human life.
As an elected chair of LDCs, Nepal now needs to work to prepare enforceable programs that can benefit all member states. The larger the cooperation Nepal as chairperson can get from the UN, the greater the LDCs could benefit.
Nepal needs to work on addressing the socioeconomic inequalities, ethnic imbalances pervasive illiteracy and diseases plaguing LDCs. Another important issue that it must take up is climate change, which has visibly degraded the environment and ecosystems deeply affecting socioeconomic life of the poorest people of the world.
Nepal must ensure its preparedness to do whatever possible and practical in addition to planning for the next conference in 2011, scheduled to be held in Turkey. The first UN Conference on LDCs was held in 1981 in Paris, France which was followed by another conference in 1990, again in Paris. The third conference took place in Brussels, Belgium in 2001.
Nepal’s success as leader of LDCs looks like a distant dream if we are to go by the existing political situation in the country. The political turbulence has certainly eroded the governmental capability to manage such an enormous task of international dimension. In the past three years, we have seen three prime ministers under whom four foreign ministers have worked as top brass of Nepal’s diplomacy. Primarily, the foreign minister is the sole official on whom lays the responsibility of doing business of international affairs, including official activities of the UN.
In the foreign ministry, we also do not have an adequate number of diplomats who are well-versed about the needs and conditions of all the LDCs of the world. Added to this, we lack diplomats with efficient communication skills, especially in French and other international languages beside the English language. Viewed in this context, the Permanent Mission of Nepal to the UN in New York would certainly have to face difficulties in effectively running the office of the Coordinating Bureau of LDCs. All said, Nepal can still be able to pull off a worthwhile show if it plans and prepares well.
Domestic imbroglio, after all, need not necessarily deter Nepal to effectively discharge its international duties.
Writer is former joint secretatry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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