The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) need bold investments in health, education and social protection systems- and all the resources required to fully implement the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are currently 46 countries recognized as part of the LDC group - 33 in Africa, 12 in Asia and the Pacific, and one in the Caribbean region - some are islands and others are landlocked. Collectively they constitute around 880 million people, or 12 percent of the world population. Eight are Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
The fifth United Nations Conference on the LDCs comes at a critical moment as the timeline to achieving the SDGs by 2030 hits the mid-point mark this year. Taking take place in Doha, Qatar, from 5-9 March 2023 under the theme - "From Potential to Prosperity", the conference will be attended by Heads of States, governments, civil society organizations, youth, parliamentarians, and the international community.
The objective of the Conference is to build momentum around the implementation of the Doha Programme Of Action (DPoA), which is an ambitious and forward-looking agenda. It calls for a new generation of partnerships to improve LDCs' capacities for eradicating poverty and leaving no one behind, advancing structural transformation, trade, and regional integration, leveraging science and innovation and building resilience and sustainability. The DPoA also reiterates a special role for youth and accelerating LDC graduation of 15 countries by 2031, which are in some of the world's most fragile, conflict, and post-conflict hotspots.
UNDP will participate in several high-level events, ministerial meetings, and thematic roundtables with partners, to build engagement and bolster support for the LDCs. Key issues on the agenda will be climate, risk finance and insurance, sustainable energy, resilience building, gender, youth empowerment, innovation and digitalization, youth centered innovative finance, trade, south-south cooperation and knowledge sharing.
UNDP, together with partners, is committed to accelerate the implementation of the Doha Platform for Action by focusing on sustainable finance, energy, innovation, and digitalization. UNDP is also committed to assisting LDCs to graduate smoothly through transition plans and strategies, while also exploring policies to tackle debt stress, enhance domestic resource mobilization and strengthening key national capacity challenges.
Going forward, UNDP aims to support a multilateral system that can craft new convergences for LDCs, against the backdrop of geopolitical, and geoeconomic fragmentation, as well as pervasive climate crisis.
