CAIRO: Poverty rates remain steady or are simply falling slightly in the world's most vulnerable economies, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan argues in two United Nations releases prepared for the General Assembly High-Level Meeting on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). While the LDC's as a group are experiencing high growth rates of six percent or more per year, the poverty rates in those countries have not improved and may have even worsened in some nations, Annan continues. The 2001 10-year action plan for LDCs is scheduled for review in the General Assembly on Sept. 18-19 in New York. The LDC program of action was implemented during the third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Brussels in May 2001. At the conference, affluent nations agreed to enhance support to economically vulnerable states through aid, trade and debt relief. In exchange, governments of the world's 50 most economically vulnerable nations promised economic reforms and democratic governance. Following the Brussels conference, the European Union volunteered to lift tariff barriers on LDC products, excluding armaments. Furthermore, in the context of the Brussels meeting, the OECD in Paris pledged to reduce tied aid, which has provided a significant boost to the effectiveness of official development assistance. Governments in economically vulnerable states have reportedly paid increased attention to education and health, which has resulted in decreased infant and child mortality rates. However, despite enhanced economic growth in the LDCs, the rate of extreme poverty is still rising in most of them. According to the UN report, one of the underlying reasons for this continued poverty is the dependence on the primary commodity sector, so-called low-labor intensity activity, which hinders long-term development and broad-based job creation. Earnings among the general public are unlikely to increase without support for building capacity beyond production of primary commodities. Moreover, once the commodity boom is over, there will be little ability to take advantage of improved trade access. In addition, civil unrest is still plaguing many LDCs, although most of them hold elections and voter participation remain at a high. Due to steady poverty rates, the nations comprising the world's 50 most vulnerable countries will have a hard time achieving the Millennium Goal Target of cutting their poverty rates in half by 2015, the report claims. According to Annan, measures taken to reduce the external debt burden of LDCs have had an impact. The ratio of debt service to exports of goods and service for these countries has decreased by half since 1990 and 2004, and intense efforts to extend debt relief are continuing. To access the full United Nations report on the situation in Least Developed Countries, visit www.un.org/ohrlls.
