Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav has sad that there are injustices in resource sharing in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) due to which they are not able to carry out programmes on their own.

Addressing the Asia regional consultation on LDC issues, Saturday, in Kathmandu, Minister Yadav said, “Poverty will not be eradicated unless injustices prevail in LDCs.”

Dr. Arjun Karki, International chair of LDC Watch said that the first two LDC conferences were held in Paris (in 1980 and 1990), but failed to gain much attention from different stakeholders. The third conference, which was held in Brussels in 2001 came up with a Brussels Programme of Action (BPoA) that comprised of seven basic goals. He also informed that the Government of Nepal will be holding the chair of LDC Government next year.

The two-day consultation is being held to assess the effective implementation of the BPoA including other internationally agreed development goals towards achieving the overarching objective of poverty reduction and sustainable development in the Asian LDCs.

The consultation started with the message that an increase in number of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) from 24 in 1971 to 49 today, and ironically, after three decades of special development attention, three UN LDC consultations and three specific Programmes of Action, clearly proves the failure of existing development paradigms to effectively address the development challenges and constraints in these poorest countries.

There are now 33 LDCs in Africa, 15 in Asia and 1 in the Caribbean that house 750 million people. nepalnews.com sd Nov 09 08