Thematic Debate
PM Session
LDC/ISTANBUL/9
11 May 2011
RETHINKING APPROACH TO MANAGING VULNERABILITIES OF LEAST DEVELOPED
COUNTRIES FOCUS OF THEMATIC DEBATE, AT ISTANBUL CONFERENCE
An expert panel at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least
Developed Countries this afternoon considered the unique vulnerabilities of
those countries and weighed strategies to help them rise above a raft of complex
challenges, including geographical isolation, skyrocketing food prices, global
warming, and lack of access to clean water.
“We need to help the least developed countries significantly and rapidly
improve their physical, human and institutional infrastructure, improve
agricultural productivity and expand export capacities,” said Louis Kasekende,
Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Uganda, setting out a recipe for
bolstering the resilience of those countries to shocks, in a keynote address
during the high-level thematic debate, entitled, “Reducing Vulnerabilities,
Responding to Emerging Challenges, and Enhancing Food Security in the LDCs”.
Continuing, Mr. Kasekende, who is also a member of the Group of Eminent
Persons on the Least Developed Countries, called for a new development
partnership that went beyond the established compact between those nations and
traditional donors to include, for example, non-traditional donors, grassroots
groups and private sector actors. Their efforts had been proven in areas such
as upgrading infrastructure and providing new export markets for goods from
those countries.
Also delivering a keynote address, Mehdi Erkel, Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Affairs of Turkey, said food security was the essence and starting
point of development. Agriculture was the backbone of the economies of many
least developed countries, since major portions of their populations worked in
that sector and a large percentage of household expenditures was devoted to
purchasing food. Most of the least developed countries were net food importers
and, given their intrinsic vulnerability, were vulnerable to volatility in food
and commodity prices.
Touching on another issue speakers believed was vital to address
vulnerabilities in least developed countries was Bacai Sanha, President of
Guinea-Bissau. He said that qualitative and quantitative transformation of
agriculture sectors was impossible without adopting new technologies and
appropriate mechanisms to ensure increased production and productivity. He also
stressed the need to provide better seeds, equipment and other agricultural
inputs and to adopt strategies that strengthened farmers’ activities, especially
small farmers, in areas such as water management.
Setting the stage for the interactive discussion, Ahmed Naseem, Minister
of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives, who chaired the event, said that while all
least developed countries faced similar vulnerabilities, small islands faced
permanent structural weaknesses that required unique redress. They were
characterized by tiny populations, huge distances from markets of scale and
particular susceptibility to climate change.
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For information media  not an official record  http://www.un.org/en/ldc/
Thematic Debate
PM Session
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LDC/ISTANBUL/9
11 May 2011
The Maldives was a unique case because it had been on track to graduate
from the list of least developed countries in 2007, he said, but owing to a
series of economic shocks and the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, the
United Nations General Assembly had deferred its graduation, continuing to
confer full benefits to it under its least developed-country status until
January of this year. He said Maldives’ paradox -– being relatively prosperous
but extremely vulnerable -- revealed that care should be taken to consistently
monitor and provide assistance to the least developed even when indicators
suggested otherwise.
Among the lead discussants, Anna Tibaijuka, Minister of Human Settlements,
Housing and Urban Affairs of the United Republic of Tanzania, said the very term
“least developed” meant that those countries were vulnerable. “So the real
question is what can we do?” While international action to secure their
sustainable development was certainly necessary, plans and strategies would only
be as successful as their implementation on the ground. Therefore, the plans
must be targeted and include inputs from those who would make them work at the
community level.
Speaking next in her capacity as Chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation
Collaborative Council, she was concerned that water and sanitation issues had
barely been mentioned during the Conference thus far, particularly given that
2.6 billion people worldwide did not have access to a basic toilet and
800 million lacked access to clean water. Delivering on the relevant Millennium
Development Goals, therefore, would go a long way towards reducing
vulnerabilities. “If we are going to secure economic advancement we need
healthy populations,” she said, adding that “it is futile to assume that was
going to occur, especially in the least developed countries, without dealing
with sanitation issues.”
Ms. Tibaijuka was joined by a diverse panel of lead discussants,
including: Lila Hanitra Ratsifandrihamanana from the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) Liaison Office with the United Nations; Luc Gnacadja,
Executive Director of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification;
Richard Kinley, Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); Amir Abdulla, Deputy Executive Secretary
of the World Food Programme (WFP); and Babu Mathew of the South Asia Alliance
for Poverty Eradication.
Mr. Kinley said that the least developed countries had a privileged place
in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its
implementation. Since its establishment, that instrument had recognized the
vulnerability of those countries to climate change and had charged parties to
the Convention to take that situation into account. In response, a work
programme had been established under the Convention in 2001 to support those
countries’ planning and implementation in areas, such as adaptation, capacitybuilding and awareness raising.
When the floor was opened for discussion, the representative of Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines boiled the issue down to what he believed was its
essence: there was little need to endlessly discuss the ways least developed
countries could strengthen productive capacities, diversify products and improve
infrastructure if they could not trade fairly in the global marketplace.
Leveling that playing field and extending duty- and quota-free access for all
commodities of interest to those countries were critical to erasing their
vulnerabilities.
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Thematic Debate
PM Session
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LDC/ISTANBUL/9
11 May 2011
A representative of the Ugandan Farmers’ Association said not enough
attention was being paid to developing agriculture sectors, and that even less
attention was devoted to developing farmers’ capacity. He, therefore, called
for action plans that not only dealt with issues like subsidies and market
access, but which also aimed at improving the lives of farmers so that in turn,
they helped ease vulnerabilities caused by food insecurity.
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