UN to chart out future development agenda for 49 less developed countries

Amid growing concerns over the failure of the global community to meet its obligations towards the MDGs (Millenium Development Goals), the UN is set to chart out the future development agenda for the 49 most “vulnerable nations”, five of them in India’s immediate neighbourhood.

The 4th UN Conference on the Less Developed Countries (LDC) in Istanbul next month will frame a new programme of action to determine the development paradigm for the future.

“The exercise, though crucial, will not be easy,” said Mr Nagesh Kumar, chief economist and director, Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP).

“The developed world is seeking to shift its responsibility following the 2008 global economic crisis. They are reluctant to contribute the much-needed resources in the face of unemployment and economic crisis in their own countries,” he said at a workshop organised by the UN Information Centre here, ahead of the conference in Turkey from May 9-13.

Of the 49 LDCs, which are also “most vulnerable to natural and climate change related disasters”, five of them are Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

About 75 per cent of the 885 million people constituting the LDCs live on less than $2 a day and “suffer from diseases long eradicated in other parts of the world’’.

LDCs’ food import bill has surged from over $9 billion in 2002 to $24 billion in 2008.

“After the worst economic downturn in generations, the Official Development Aid (ODA) has become complicated as Western nations are cutting back on international aid due to their own problems,” said Mr Syed Nuruzzaman, head of Countries with Special Needs (CSN), Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division, UN-ESCAP.

For Mr Nuruzzaman the LDCs need to stop looking to Western capitals for aid and deepen South-South and regional cooperation.

“Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar are fortunate to be located close to a rapidly growing India,” said Mr Nuruzzaman, a Bangladeshi who saw tremendous potential in regional cooperation.

Citing the example of Indo-Sri Lanka trade ties, which has expanded by 300 per cent in the past seven years, Mr Kumar underlined the need for the LDCs of the sub-SAARC region to take advantage of India’s growth.

He said Nepal and Bhutan already have direct access to the huge Indian market. Bangladesh and Myanmar could use their proximity to India to graduate out of the LDC.

“The challenges are here, but the solutions are also here,” Mr Nuruzzaman underlined.

Asked about Indo-Bangladesh economic ties, he said: “Unlike 30 years ago, today you have the right kind of policy cooperation, and the political will to implement it.”

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