Two high-level conferences for countries in special situations are scheduled for 2024 and Preparatory Committees have begun their discussions at the UNHQ. This Round Up focuses on central themes explored by the UNGA78 Second Committee (Economic and Financial)’s session on Groups of Countries in Special Situations, including debt distress and vulnerability, concessional funding and climate financing. Read more
This GPW Round Up – 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC5): Highlights from High-Level Roundtable discussions at LDC5 – features a selection of perspectives from different groups of participants at the LDC5 Conference held in March 2023. Read more
The Civil Society Forum of the LDC5 Conference was organized by a Core Group of civil society organizations composed of LDC-Watch, Third World Network, Social Watch and Global Policy Forum, in collaboration with the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries (UN-OHRLLS). The Civil Society Forum was held in Doha, Qatar, from 4 to 9 March 2023. Read more
Bonn, Germany | 27 – 30 September 2022 Barbara Adams (GPF), Julie Kim (GPF), Roberto Bissio (Social Watch) The CSO
By Alexa Sabatini, Julie Kim, Barbara Adams, and Karen Judd
The UN established the category of least developed countries (LDCs) in 1971, as many developing countries were navigating a path to development in the post-colonial period. The classification identified specific development challenges faced by these countries. Read more
By Antje Hipkins and Elena Marmo
Crucial to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda is SDG 17, “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development”. Increasingly, discussions now take the form of multistakeholder partnerships and engagement with the business sector as a tool to mobilize finance for the SDGs or generate needed capacity – often to develop a pipeline of bankable projects. This partnership orientation has become a regular feature of the UN agenda, from the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Operational Activities Segment in May 2022 to the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in July 2022. Read more
By Antje Hipkins
At the first High-level Political Forum held in person since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2022, 44 countries presented VNRs, including many Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). These countries focused on progress toward achieving the 2030 Agenda and the impact of COVID-19 on countries’ development plans, progress on gender equality, specific vulnerabilities in the face of multiple global crises, and the urgency of increasing climate resilience. Some emphasized the importance of a shift away from reliance on Gross National Income (GNI) as a key measure of development, as well as concern about the ability of LDCs to continue developing sustainably after graduating from the category. Read more
By Barbara Adams and Julie Kim
One of the global processes falling prey to the Omicron variant of the Covid virus was the fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed countries, originally scheduled for the end of January in Doha, Qatar. It has been replaced with a meeting in New York on 17 March 2022 for the adoption of the Doha Programme of Action (DPoA); a full meeting will be held in March 2023, where governments will gather with stakeholders “to build new plans and partnerships for the delivery of the DPoA over the following decade”. The LDC conferences and programmes of action have a long history of marking the state of global solidarity with countries most in need of co-operation and of the underlying root-causes for global inequalities. Read more
By Elena Marmo
The COVID-19 crisis continues to have profound consequences across all sectors of society. Following the initial worldwide shutdown and resulting economic crisis, governments were forced to respond quickly to the virus, while also addressing the profound socioeconomic impacts—widespread job loss, inadequate social protection systems, and industries on the brink of collapse. Read more
Against the backdrop of COVID-19’s ongoing impact on economies and societies worldwide, the United Nations is bringing the lens of COVID-19 recovery to its High level meetings. September saw the launch of the UN Secretary-General’s ‘Our Common Agenda on 12 September’, the opening of the UN General Debate on 14 September and a series of High-level meetings ranging from sustainable development to nuclear disarmament. Read more
By the GPW team
With preparations underway for the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) being held in 23-27 January 2022, the co-chairs of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), have convened two consultations with CSOs, one on 20 May and one on 28 July. Read more
By Alexa Sabatini
Ambassador Fatima highlights the drastic consequences the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought on LDC countries. Referring to the scheduled process of LDC “graduation” out of that category, managed by the UN Committee on Development Policy, she underlined the way in which the pandemic has upended progress since the last LDC conference. Read more
By Barbara Adams and Tejaswini Vavilala
The second PrepCom session will take place on 26-30 July 2021 and will launch negotiations on the Programme of Action for LDCs for the next decade, a decade that coincides with the last decade of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is the last HLPF before the Doha conference / LDC5. During the HLPF Ministerial segment of the HLPF, eight LDCs will present their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), making a total of 53 LDC VNR presentations over the last six years, many by countries for the second, and some for a third, time. Read more
By Elena Marmo and Alexa Sabatini
The Fifth UN Conference on the LDC5 will be held In Doha in January 2022. Preparations are already underway to negotiate the Outcome Document to be adopted in Doha, which will serve as a new 10-year Programme of Action for the LDCs.
On 20 May 2021, Co-Chairs of the LDC5 Preparatory Committee bureau–Rabab Fatima, Permanent Representative of Bangladesh and Bob Rae, Permanent Representative of Canada–facilitated a virtual consultation with CSOs, designed to address policy prescriptions that LDC5 must deliver to meet the needs of people and planet. Read more
By Elena Marmo and Barbara Adams
The United Nations and Member States begin the 2021 calendar confronted with the need to address the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and growing global inequalities. Despite the WHO’s efforts to make the COVID-19 vaccine “affordable and accessible for all” through the ACT Accelerator and calls by CSOs and UN leadership and world leaders for a People’s Vaccine (a global public good free from Intellectual Property Rights), the global vaccine distribution/rollout has been dominated by wealthy, developed countries, with little if any vaccines available for small and medium developing countries. Read more
This public panel will discuss the multiple roles of rural women and girls for enhancing food sovereignty, preserving biodiversity, reducing inequalities, and combating climate change. The presentations will affirm the importance of engaging women in policy-making around more equitable and sustainable production and consumption.
Panelists will offer perspectives from the local level, addressing challenges such as intellectual property rights and land ownership for small-scale women farmers. Read more…
By Barbara Adams and Jens Martens The United Nations Foundation (UNF) was established two decades ago principally to champion and
In the Roundtable Discussion “Systemic Issues, including Global Economic Governance and External Debt” that took place in the framework of the UN General Assembly Hearings with Civil Society in preparation for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development Marina Durano, member of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, said that we need to respond to volatile flows of finance that become external sources of instability for open economies. Colleagues have already spoken about unpredictable aid flows. We need to take a critical look at investment capital that search for gains from interest rate or currency arbitrage brought on by very loose monetary policies of developed countries. These flows affect the value of developing country currencies as well as prices in their assets markets.
