We live in a world where inequity is a fact of life. The 4th United Nations Conference for the Least Developed Countries, which is to kick off in Istanbul, Turkey, next week (9-13 May), is the latest in a series of conferences to address this long-standing and indeed worsening inequity. But if we are to meet the challenge facing the 4th LDC conference – to make LDCs history – then both LDCs and developed country governments must raise their ambitions.
To do this, it is first necessary to accept that despite all the commitments and pledges’, including the Brussels Program of Action for 2001-2010 that the last LDC conference generated, the international community has failed the world’s poorest citizens. In fact, the past three decades of development have been marked by an increase in the number of LDCs from 24 to 48 countries. Only three countries – Botswana, Cape Verde and Maldives -- have graduated from the LDC status so far. Further, the LDCs are being severely impacted by three crises that they have had no role in creating: Crises of the financial system, the climate system and the food system.
The 4th LDC Conference should be a historical watershed in terms of adopting a bold new agenda which will lead to the graduation of at least half of the LDCs in the next decade. Such an agenda should immediately set the stage for issues such as agricultural development which places small farmers at the centre of policy to realise food security and food sovereignty and initiate strong action for climate justice and the protection of the world’s most vulnerable people from the devastating impacts of climate change. The agendas should also deliver long-standing promises for fair and supportive policies on international trade and a stop to bilateral and regional trade agreements that are inequitable and undermine the important role of governments in promoting equitable development.
The conference should adopt immediate and decisive steps for debt cancellation for LDCs; LDCs spend over US$6 billion every year on debt servicing, and in many LDCs more money is spent on debt servicing than on essential services like healthcare, drinking water and energy. As well as provide more and better aid in the form of untied grants and other financial resources to invest in productive capacity and human development. The agendas should also focus on transformation of the international financial system towards greater regulation of financial markets and speculative activities, especially where staple food commodities are concerned; and democratic ownership by peoples and recognition of the critical role of a developmental state.
While there is a need to assess the failings of the Brussels Program of Action and of approaches to development in general, the urgent task is to craft ambitious and implementable strategies based on the above in order to effectively address the constraints to development that condemn too many to a life of poverty and uncertainty, with little prospect for the future.
Let us not forget that each and every country has an enormous asset in the form of its own people. It is on a nation’s people that any development strategy must depend if it is to succeed in the long term. In too many LDCs, this asset has yet to be mobilized effectively, which in itself contributes to their continued vulnerability.
EXPECTATIONS FROM THE CONFERENCE
So, what do we expect from this conference? Certainly not an outcome that merely rolls over the Programs of Action of past decades, reiterates commitments already made, and yet again urges renewed efforts for their implementation. We do not need a conference to pay lip service to development.
It is also crucial to understand that LDCs need opportunities, not charity. LDCs need rights, not handouts. They need support, not exploitation. The international system is stuck in meeting the challenges of the early 21st century. A lack of progress with the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and in addressing structural flaws in the financial system must not be an excuse for a lack of progress in supporting LDCs. People living in poverty in LDCs should not be asked to pay for political paralysis with their lives.
Global development policy must acknowledge the special and different needs of the LDCs. Led by the UN, the global community must recognize its collective responsibility to the world’s most vulnerable citizens. Going forward, LDCs should receive the highest priority in terms of resources, technology and a proportional voice in global governance to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and ideally to eradicate poverty in the not-so-distant future.
Let us not forget that each and every country has an enormous asset in the form of its own people. It is on a nation’s people that any development strategy must depend if it is to succeed in the long term. In too many LDCs, this asset has yet to be mobilized effectively, which in itself contributes to their continued vulnerability.
We want a world without LDCs. The world should accept nothing less.
Writer is the Chairperson and Spokesperson of the Steering Committee of Civil Society Forum on UN LDC IV, and the International Coordinator of LDC Watch
akarki@ldcwatch.org
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