LDCs present VNRs at the HLPF (13–15 July 2021)

Download UN Monitor #25 (pdf version).

By Barbara Adams and Tejaswini Vavilala

Two days ago at the opening of the UN High-level Political Forum (HLPF) the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, addressed the problem of inequalities– inside households, within national economies and across different countries. Concerning “vaccine inequality”, she added that as of 1 July there had been 1.3 doses per 100 people in least developed countries (LDCs) compared with 83 doses per 100 people in developed countries.

Six weeks ago, on 24-28 May, Member States met in the first Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the Fifth Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) to be held 23-27 January 2022 in Doha, Qatar. The second PrepCom session will take place on 26-30 July 2021 and will launch negotiations on the Programme of Action for LDCs for the next decade, a decade that coincides with the last decade of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This is the last HLPF before the Doha conference / LDC5. During the HLPF Ministerial segment of the HLPF, eight LDCs will present their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), making a total of 53 LDC VNR presentations over the last six years, many by countries for the second, and some for a third, time.

Table 1 lists the LDCs, their VNR presentations and contains links (denoted by X) to the individual national reports.

Country

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Afghanistan

X

X

Angola

X

Bangladesh

X

X

Benin

X

X

X

Bhutan

X

X

Burkina Faso

X

Burundi

X

Cambodia

X

Central African Republic

X

Chad

X

X

Comoros

X

Democratic Republic of the Congo

X

Djibouti

X

Eritrea

Ethiopia

X

Gambia

X

Guinea

X

Guinea-Bissau

Haiti

Kiribati

X

Lao People’s Democratic Republic

X

X

Lesotho

X

Liberia

X

Madagascar

X

X

Malawi

X

Mali

X

Mauritania

X

Mozambique

X

Myanmar

Nepal

X

X

Niger

X

X

X

Rwanda

X

Sao Tome and Principe

Senegal

X

Sierra Leone

X

X

X

Solomon Islands

X

Somalia

South Sudan

Sudan

X

Timor-Leste

X

Togo

X

X

X

Tuvalu

Uganda

X

X

United Republic of Tanzania

X

Yemen

Zambia

X

The Presidents of the UN General Assembly and the ECOSOC, the Secretary-General, as well as CSO representatives, have sounded the alarm on the complex agenda facing the LDCs, an agenda that requires quality policy responses across many inter-governmental processes and fora, such as the WTO, to shape a robust and meaningful Doha Programme of Action.

For more information, follow the Global Policy Watch Monitors on the website: https://www.globalpolicywatch.org/blog/category/un-monitor/

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