LANDLOCKED DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: REGIONAL INTEGRATION
WORKING TOGETHER: A CATALYST FOR ECONOMIC
GROWTH FOR LLDCS Geography plays a strong role in a country’s economic development. This is not always an advantage. But countries are working hard to prevent their position on the globe from also becoming their fate By Zakaria Hanafi and Nicholas K. Smith, OPEC Fund
L ife for a landlocked country can be hard. History is full of cities like Alexandria, Venice and Amsterdam that drew much of their wealth from maritime trade. And this is just what landlocked countries lack: access to the sea that in turn allows them to easily trade with everywhere else in the world. According to the UN definition, landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) face a whole host of challenges: lack of territorial access to the sea, remoteness and isolation from world markets, additional border crossings, cumbersome transit procedures,
inefficient logistics systems, weak institutions and poor infrastructure. All of which incurs substantially higher transport and other trade transaction costs when compared to coastal countries. These high costs present a substantial barrier to economic growth and sustainable development.
But geography is not fate. Not all landlocked developing countries are drawn on the map equally. Kazakhstan is 3,750 km from the sea, the longest distance in the LLDC club. Lesotho is entirely surrounded by South Africa. Then there’s Uzbekistan, the only doubly-landlocked developing country, in other words, it is surrounded on all sides by neighbors who are landlocked themselves. In all 16 LLDCs can be found in Africa, 10 in Asia, four in Europe and two in Latin America. Of these 32 countries without sea access, 16 are also classified as least developed.
30
Powered by FlippingBook