The coming decade and an agenda for action to create a NIDA for LDCs

This chapter seeks to provide concrete content to the new international development architecture (NIDA) for the LDCs. Its mechanisms should be forward-looking and attuned to possible trends over the coming decade. With this in mind, section B presents some economic scenarios for LDCs in the decade 2011–2020 using the Global Policy Model developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), and it presents policy simulations which indicate the feasibility and relative effectiveness of different development strategies. These include development strategies which increase government spending on infrastructure investment, export promotion and the development of productive capacities of the LDCs through the realization of an export-investment nexus. The model is based on historical relationships, but there will certainly be new international factors that will affect the prospects for development and poverty reduction in the LDCs. Section C describes two of these factors: (i) climate change, and (ii) increasing economic relationships between LDCs and other developing countries (ODCs). Finally, section D outlines major elements of an agenda for action to create a NIDA for the LDCs in the areas of finance, trade, commodities, technology and climate change. It recommends a number of specific international actions for reform of the global economic regimes and of South-South development cooperation in ways that are particularly relevant for LDCs and proposes international support mechanisms (ISMs) specifically targeted at LDCs. These elements of a positive agenda to improve the situation of the LDCs could be taken up within the negotiation processes around the Fourth United Nations Conference for LDCs to be held in Istanbul from 29 May to 3 June 2011. The final three chapters of this Report elaborate on this agenda for action in more detail.

Related Subject(s): Economic and Social Development