Tag: LDC

By Anna Wood for Southeast European Times in Istanbul — 16/05/11

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”]In hosting the 4th UN conference on the Least Developed Countries and funding the attendance of delegates from Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Turkey underscored its commitment to eradicating global poverty. The event also served as another opportunity for Turkey to emphasise its growing role as a global power and international mediator.

“Istanbul has come to be known as a meeting point of continents, but it would make us more proud if Istanbul came to be remembered as the place where the misfortune of almost a billion people has taken a positive turn,” said President Adbullah Gul, reiterating his country’s commitment to this issue.

“Turkey has assumed the responsibility of putting LDC-related topics into the agenda of the international community and contributing to efforts for finding solutions for the problems of LDCs until 2020, ” said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the final press conference, adding that “In a way, Turkey has been the voice of the LDCs, and we continue to be the voice of the LDCs.”

Gul spoke somberly of conditions that face the LDCs, reminding the audience that at the first LDC Conference in 1971 there were only 35 countries of concern; now, there are 48, and only three have improved enough to be taken off the list. So long as such inequality remains, he said, “no one will be able to live in peace or prosperity”.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has become known for his fiery rhetoric on the international stage, attracted attention for saying that this summit, and the issue of poverty at large, has been largely ignored by the international community.

“To be honest, in a world with millions of people with daily consumption under $1.25, nobody is innocent,” he stated, going on to criticise Western and Northern states for their “racist and discriminatory tendencies”.

In regard to Ankara’s own role in fighting poverty, Turkish officials held their country up as both a model donor state and as a country that has overcome financial straits itself in the recent past. Gul cited Turkey’s annual contribution to LDCs of nearly $12 billion, made up of both state and NGO aid.

Erdoğan touted Turkey’s own domestic battle against poverty, one that has largely been waged under his watch. “The ratio of people whose daily consumption was less than $4.30 was 30% in 2002, and, take note, we dropped it to 4%,” he said, going on to describe the improved infrastructure, schools, homes and health facilities created for Turkey’s impoverished citizens.

Growth of the economy averaged 6% between 2002 and 2008, and the country has managed a relatively swift recovery after the global financial crisis. Critics, however, have raised concerns over the country’s reliance on short-term inflows of foreign capital.

This content was commissioned for SETimes.com.

As well as global giants like Coca-Cola and Marriott, 550 firms from developing countries attend conference in Turkey designed to improve the fortunes of the world’s 48 poorest countries

MDG : UN LLDC meeting in Istanbul : Abdullah Gul, president of Turkey

Abdullah Gül, the Turkish president, says the presence of a large number of companies from least developed countries is one of the most important aspects of the UN LDC conference in Istanbul this week. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images

Businesses from rich and poor countries are thick on the ground at this ambitious UN conference designed to boost the fortunes of the world’s 48 poorest countries. The heavy presence of the private sector is the novel factor in the fourth UN conference on the least developed countries.

More than 2,000 companies are represented at the week-long jamboree in Istanbul, and they do not all come from the industrialised world. Besides familiar names such as Coca-Cola and Marriott, at least 550 firms from the LDCs are here. They bear unfamiliar names (at least to the west), such as Volcanic Earth from Vanuatu, Came Rise import export from Cambodia and Badsha Textiles from Bangladesh.

A trade fair, hosted by Turkey’s confederation of businessmen and industrialists, is going on all week and a business “matchmaking event” on Tuesday gave opportunity for LDC companies to meet with counterparts from the industrialised world.

The biggest business contingent comes from Turkey – the first developing country to host a UN LDC conference since LDCs officially became a category in 1971. This reflects, perhaps, Turkey’s desire to find business opportunities in new markets, as well as a belief – from its own historical experience – of the importance of the private sector in economic development. For the Turkish president, Abdullah Gül, this is what makes this conference different from its predecessors.

“This is a conference not just of government officials,” he told the Guardian at the Tarabya presidential residence, with a splendid view of the Bosphorus. “There is a business track with the business community from LDCs and we have arranged it so they can have their own meetings. To me it is one of the most important aspects of this conference. It is the first time that there is this kind of large business presence.”

Gül, who was meeting the world’s press before attending Turkey’s cup final tonight, said he wanted the conference to act as a spur to joint ventures between businesses in the developing and developed world that would boost growth and create jobs.

“We see the private sector as a very important dimension, it’s the right kind of model,” he said.

Gül politely declined to be sidetracked on to other pressing regional matters, such as the unrest in Syria or the civil war in Libya. He did not want “such topical issues” to overshadow the “overarching” importance of development matters at hand.

The UN is fully behind the embrace of private business. “Despite recent progress in some countries, more than 660 million people continue to live in poverty, largely disconnected from global markets and economic opportunity,” said Georg Kell, executive director for the UN Global Compact, the UN’s voluntary corporate responsibility initiative. “By bringing the voice of business to this LDC conference we hope that governments will improve the environment for business to grow. And showcasing market-led solutions we hope to inspire more partnerships which have the power to improve the lives of people.”

As for the broad aims of the conference – halving the number of LDCs to 24 in the next decade – Gül was confident that the final document, a plan of action, would ensure that the next 10 years would be very different from the previous decade. Only three countries have shed their LDC status since 1971.

Civil society groups, however, are not so upbeat. They say that much of what appears to have been agreed in the forthcoming programme of action, to be finalised and endorsed by governments on Friday, will not help as it is simply written in language that was agreed from other processes.

“To achieve a world without LDCs is not just a matter of upscaling resources, we need to be rethinking both the model and the practice of sustainable development,” said Demba Moussa Dembele, president of LDC Watch, an NGO network formed after the 2001 UN LDC conference held in Brussels. “Civil society leaders stress that a world without LDCs needs more than a small increase in ODA, or settling for commitments which extend no further than the millennium development goals on reducing poverty.”

For Stephen O’Brien, UK international development minister, who is in Istanbul, it was imperative that the conference stress the importance of a successful end to the Doha trade negotiations – the so-called development round. A Doha round that extended duty free access to goods from LDCs would lift 3 million people out of poverty and come at a very low cost to the G20 of economic rich and emerging countries, he told the conference.

“Ensuring that countries are fully integrated into the global economy is critical to drive growth and poverty reduction. Without a fair chance to export their products, countries cannot meet their potential to grow and reduce poverty. A successful conclusion of the Doha development round and a strong multilateral system remain the best way to ensure sustained and fair market access of developing countries to global markets.”

via Least developed countries conference embraces private sector | Mark Tran | Global development | guardian.co.uk.