GLOBALIZAITON REVOLUTION HAS NOT BENEFITTED LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL TO MINISTERIAL MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

Press Release
SG/SM/7154

GLOBALIZAITON REVOLUTION HAS NOT BENEFITTED LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES, SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL TO MINISTERIAL MEETING AT HEADQUARTERS

Following is the text of the remarks of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the ninth annual Ministerial Meeting of the Least Developed Countries in New York on 29 September:

This ministerial meeting is both timely and crucial. We meet at the end of a century in which globalization has brought revolutionary change, but for the least developed countries, it has yet to bring change for the better. We gather to reconfirm the commitment of the United Nations to mobilizing international action in favour of least developed countries, and to look ahead to the Third Conference on Least Developed Countries in the first year of the new century.

We know we must create an institutional framework to enable least developed countries to participate in globalization and to reap some of its benefits. This presents the whole international community with a challenge to help you develop your institutions and skills, build up your infrastructure and diversify your economies.

It calls on us to meet the needs of least developed countries in terms of official development assistance, debt relief, market access and foreign investment, and to work for the elimination of tariff barriers from least developed country exports. The third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in November provides an important opportunity. We must make sure it is used to the best advantage of the least developed countries.

It is now almost 30 years since the General Assembly recognized the existence of the least developed countries as the poorest group of developing countries. It is a matter of grave concern that the weak economic situation of the countries in this group has not improved. On the contrary, the number of States in the group has increased from 25 in 1971 to 48 in 1997. Only one, Botswana, has graduated from the list.

There has been some progress over the past three decades in improving access to water, health and sanitation among least developed countries. But, at the same time, per capita incomes have dropped. The share of world exports has continued to go down. Least developed countries have experienced significant declines in official development assistance flows.

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And so far, only a few least developed countries have benefited from debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. Promises made at the 1999 Summit of the group of eight industrialized countries offer hope that this will change. I welcome wholeheartedly the news this week that last-minute contributions have finally brought the HIPC scheme to life. But we must not rest on our laurels. As Jim Wolfensohn points out, you do not declare victory over poverty simply by forgiving debt.

In deciding to convene the Third Conference on Least Developed Countries in 2001, the General Assembly has presented us with a challenge. It calls upon us once again to bring the special development needs and constraints of the least developed countries to the attention of the international community. It asks us to formulate a programme of action to reverse the trend of increasing poverty.

Unhappily, action plans drawn up at the global or group level are seldom implemented. For this reason, you said in your Ministerial Declaration last year that the Third Conference should draw on the national experiences of the least developed countries.

I welcome this approach, and hope that the common country assessments now being drawn up by the United Nations, in consultation with governments, civil society organizations and representatives of the private sector will make an important contribution.

Such broad-based country assessments can provide a sound basis for identifying the priority issues to be addressed by both national governments and their development partners. We must aim for a Third Conference which will result in commitments that are feasible, tangible, measurable and action- oriented.

For our part, we in the United Nations will do all we can to keep the spotlight on the least developed countries; to ensure that you do not lose the gains you have made in recent years; and, above all, to ensure that we progress much faster in the new millennium.

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