Developing the poorest countries: New ideas from the 2010 UNCTAD LDC Report

In spite of 30 years of international support, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) have become increasingly marginalized. Their recent growth spurt was mainly driven by the pulleffect of the emerging Asian economies. Part of the problem is that the strategies adopted in the past to promote their development mainly emphasized on trade and aid measures, paid little attention to the removal of domestic obstacles, and hardly questioned the global governance system. UNCTAD’s 2010 LDC Report addresses many of these problems. It proposes a systemic reforms of the global regimes for trade, FDI, official finance, technology transfers and climate change adaptation; the introduction of new measures addressing the structural weaknesses of the LDCs; and enhanced South–South coorperation with the fast-growing developing countries. By necessity, UNCTAD’s Report has been selective in its approach, and has paid less attention to a few topics that are mentioned below for future consideration.