By Dr Jodie Keane, Economic Adviser, and Dr Howard Haughton, Quantitative Analyst, Commonwealth Secretariat1
This blog is part of an ongoing series evaluating various facets of Development in Transition. The 2019 “Perspectives on Global Development” on “Rethinking Development Strategies” will add to this discussion.
To learn more about countries’ strategies for economic transformation, including a session on Least Developed Countries (LDCs), follow the 10th Plenary Meeting and High-Level Meeting of the OECD Initiative for Policy Dialogue on Global Value Chains, Production Transformation and Development in Paris, France on 27-28 June 2018.
The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are an internationally defined group of highly vulnerable and structurally constrained economies with extreme levels of poverty. The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Every three years, the CDP advises ECOSOC and the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on which countries should either enter or leave the LDC category. Since the category was created in 1971, only five countries have graduated and the number of LDCs has doubled on the basis of selected indicators (income, human assets, economic vulnerability). And when countries graduate they lose international support measures provided by the international community.
