LLDCS AND SIDS
WHEN SMALL IS VULNERABLE ...AND BIG IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER
Small Island Developing States and Landlocked Developing Countries are facing different, yet comparable challenges. Two conferences later this year could prove decisive for their future By Axel Reiserer, OPEC Fund
T he coming months will be crucial for some of the most vulnerable countries in the world. From May 27 to May 30, the international community will gather in Antigua and Barbuda for the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). UN Secretary-General António Guterres has set the bar high: “Small island states do not lack ambition, they lack finance. Developed countries must deliver, honouring the promise of US$100 billion a year and delivering a road map to double adaptation finance by 2025.” Only a few weeks later, Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) will meet for their third global conference under the auspices of the UN from June 18 to 21 in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The country is hosting the event with first- hand experience: Rwanda is a landlocked country and transportation costs for imports and exports are among the highest in the world, according to the US International Trade Administration. This is a fate Rwanda shares with other countries in the world with no direct access to the sea, “which leads to geographical isolation from international markets,” as the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD, an intergovernmental organization) puts it. Its Development Assistance Committee (DAC) counts 32 developing countries in this group where import
and export of goods and services need to transit through other countries, generating high trade costs and major logistical and infrastructure challenges. Such high transport costs erode the competitiveness of LLDCs, which spend almost twice as much of their export earnings on transport and insurance services as the average for developing countries. Due to the many inherent disadvantages (economic or otherwise) suffered by LLDCs, the majority of them also belong to the additionally dire group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs, see page 10). Outside of Europe,
there is not a single highly developed landlocked country and nine of the 12 states at the bottom of the Human Development Index (a UN summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development) are landlocked. Such countries register 6 percent less economic growth than their non-landlocked counterparts, says the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN- OHRLLS). The body, established in 2001, today serves 92 vulnerable states: The 47 LDCs, 32 LLDCs (16 of which are in Africa) and 39 SIDS. In total, this group accounts for more than 1.1 billion people. The conference in Rwanda will build on the “Vienna Programme of Action for LLDCs 2014-2024” aimed at accelerating sustainable development with six priority areas: Transit policy; infrastructure development and maintenance; international trade and trade facilitation; regional integration and cooperation; structural economic transformation, and implementation. Reviewing the progress to date, the UN arrives at a rather gloomy assessment: “We note with great concern the fragile and highly uncertain global socioeconomic outlook,” an official document stated in November 2023. While acknowledging “some
The 92 vulnerable states are home to more than 1.1 billion people
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