Speaking at the Pre-LDC IV event organized by UNCTAD, Minister of Trade of Zambia Felix Mutati stated that LDCs have to take their growth and development challenge into their own hands, and believe in their own people who work for poverty alleviation. The Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC IV) is being organized in Istanbul, Turkey on 30 May-3 June 2011, and UNCTAD held a three day Pre-Conference Event at Geneva on 27-29 October 2010 to seek inputs to prepare the Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs.
Speaking at the Pre-LDC IV event organized by UNCTAD, Minister of Trade of Zambia Felix Mutati stated that LDCs have to take their growth and development challenge into their own hands, and believe in their own people who work for poverty alleviation. The Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC IV) is being organized in Istanbul, Turkey on 30 May-3 June 2011, and UNCTAD held a three day Pre-Conference Event at Geneva on 27-29 October 2010 to seek inputs to prepare the Istanbul Programme of Action for LDCs.
The United Nations convenes such a Conference every ten years for making significant changes to the plight of LDCs, the last being held in Brussels in 2001. Mutati also stated that Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF), an aid-for-trade initiative run by six multilateral agencies including the WTO and UNCTAD, can become a vehicle for trade mainstreaming and development in LDCs provided bilateral donors came forward to support it. He gave the example of the border post at Chirundu set up between Zambia and Zimbabwe as part of EIF facilitated effort which reduced time required for trucks for crossing the border from 14 days to one day.
Giving another example of how taking their development path in their own hands can help LDCs, Mutati informed that a western company fled from a low-producing copper mine in Zambia during the times when commodity prices were low. Zambia hunted for other suitors, and a Chinese company agreed to invest in its up-gradation, resulting not only in increasing production, but more profits as global commodity prices started rising again. The western company was now seeking to repurchase the mine.
UNCTAD had invited a number of organisations including CUTS International to suggest concrete, deliverable suggestions for incorporating into the planned Istanbul Programme of Action. Speaking for CUTS, Atul Kaushik stated that CUTS had undertaken seven different initiatives to prepare for LDC IV conference, and they are bearing good results. He agreed with Minister Mutati and many other speakers that EIF should become the vehicle to introduce trade mainstreaming, policy ownership and policy coherence among LDCs, and that developed country donors should wake up to support specific projects under the EIF to facilitate this effort. His other recommendations included setting up a LDC Secretariat to increase the voice of LDCs in international trade and finance deliberations, and granting an early harvest to LDCs in the ongoing Doha trade negotiations so that they can increase their productive capacities.
UNCTAD will gather all the suggestions and feed them into the negotiations of the Istanbul Programme of Action beginning in January 2011.
The gathering was also addressed by Ambassadors of Nepal and Lesotho, both seeking a clear focus on deliverables for the Istanbul Programme of Action.
For further details, contact Josiane Rufener at geneva@cuts.org.