Global Policy Forum

* … marginalization will deepen

Without the development of productive capacities and associated employment, climbing LDC exports and increased foreign investment do not lead to inclusive development nor do they provide the basis for economic transformation, the report says. Unless LDCs and their development partners renew efforts to broaden the domestic productive bases of LDCs and address their poverty-related structural weaknesses, their marginalization is likely to deepen. LDCs can export their way out of poverty only if they export the right kinds of products, the report argues.

Despite their recent record export performance, LDCs remain marginalized in the global economy – in 2006, the overall value of their output and export share remained below 1% of the global value of output (0.5%) and as a share of world merchandise exports (0.8%). Persistent trade deficits and unrelenting balance-of-payments difficulties remain the norm. The merchandise trade deficit of oil-importing LDCs increased from US$25bn in 2005 to $31bn in 2006. The majority of LDCs (42 out of 50) experienced trade deficits in 2005-2006, up from 37 of 50 for the period 2003-2004.

The enhanced export performance of oil-exporting LDCs (Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Sudan, Timor-Leste, and Yemen) and mineral exporters (Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Guinea, Mali, and Mauritania) accounted for 76% of the total increase in LDCs´ merchandise exports for 2004-2006.

Most LDCs remain agricultural economies with limited capacity to mobilize domestic resources or provide people with adequate means for survival; more and more people are seeking work outside of agriculture, but employment opportunities are not being generated fast enough to meet the growing demand, the report notes. The food crisis in many LDCs is in part a result of this lopsided development pattern.

* The big policy illusion of the past

Overall investment patterns in LDCs remain inadequate to meet either the targets set at the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries held in Brussels in 2001 or the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the report says, although some improvement in investment levels has been registered, especially in oil-exporting LDCs. The big policy illusion of the past decades was that investment in productive sectors would be taken care of by the international private sector through increased access to international capital markets or FDI inflows. But these inflows have concentrated on a few LDCs and have been weakly linked with the rest of their economies, the report says. Most FDI remains concentrated on natural resource extraction, particularly of oil and minerals.

To build economic resilience, the LDC economies need to improve agricultural productivity and diversify their economies to create non-agricultural employment opportunities. As argued in earlier Least Developed Countries Reports, this requires a new development model focused on building productive capacities and on shifting from commodity-price-led growth to "catch-up" growth.

LDC debt problems also continue, the report notes, especially for the 34 LDCs that have not been granted debt relief under the Enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) or the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) of 2006. The 16 LDCs that received irrevocable debt relief under these initiatives, by contrast, performed well. Eight out of the 16 LDCs granted debt relief attained growth levels of over 6 % for 2005-2006 (Ethiopia, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia), and the other eight achieved growth rates of 3-6 %.

The global economic slowdown implies a further decline in demand that is likely to exert adverse impact on growth prospects in LDCs, largely underpinned by increasing prices for oil, minerals, and primary commodities in Africa and increased demand for low-skilled, labour-intensive manufactures in Asian LDCs, the report says. In the face of this global slowdown, most LDCs will confront major challenges in the period ahead. Meeting these challenges will require renewed efforts by the LDCs and their development partners to improve the productive bases of LDC economies and address their structural weaknesses.

* Aid dependency and conditionality

LDCs continue to rely heavily on external sources of growth, especially official development assistance (ODA). Among LDCs in 2006, the average share of ODA disbursements as a share of GDP was about 8%; with island LDCs registering the highest aid dependence (17%), followed by African LDCs (9.3%). The lowest aid dependence was shown by Asian LDCs (4.8%), and if Afghanistan is excluded, the Asian rate was only 2.7%.

The LDCs should have greater control and flexibility over how the foreign aid they receive is used so that is has the greatest positive impact. The report says rules and conditions attached to this incoming money should not be so stringent – or so tied to meeting economic targets – that governments are hindered from tailoring development plans that meet local and national conditions. Greater "ownership" will not only channel aid where it is most effective, the report contends. It will also help LDC governments improve their governance capacities – their abilities to plan, analyze, and carry out development projects in ways that stimulate economic growth.

The notion of ownership is at the heart of the partnership approach to development cooperation elaborated internationally since 2000. The principle has received strong political support at the highest level, such as from the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005. The report recognizes that "second generation" Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) have become the main instrument by which aid donors and recipient governments fashion development plans. Thirty-nine LDCs thus far have prepared PRSPs and have presented them to the boards of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Since 2000, aid partnerships have placed increased emphasis on the principle of national country ownership, and the approach is one of the main components of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005) whose implementation will be assessed at a meeting in Accra, Ghana, in September 2008. But there is still a big gap between rhetoric and practice, the report contends. The current aid system is not as effective as it could be because ongoing aid delivery mechanisms continue to undermine effective country ownership. Problems include poor alignment between donors and recipients, lack of information, lack of transparency, donor-led, top-down, parallel systems of aid delivery, lack of coordination and harmonization between aid and government plans and budgets and processes, lack of aid predictability, and wide annual fluctuations in the amounts of aid delivered.

Both the World Bank and IMF have made major efforts to reduce the negative effects of conditionalities for the use of aid, but the job is far from done, the report says. For example, ODA inflows to Malawi, Zambia, and Sierra Leone were cut in 2003 and in 2007 because of those countries´ failures to meet macroeconomic targets. Macroeconomic stabilization, privatization, and liberalization of the banking and financial sectors remain key conditions applied to aid, complemented with more rules on governance affecting LDCs than ever before. These requirements limit what governments can do and have adverse consequences, the report says. A system is needed that allows government ownership while ensuring donors that aid is used properly and effectively. The report also suggests that the development model underpinning IMF-style conditionalities on aid has not led to sustainable or inclusive growth in most LDCs.

* Reclaiming development through aid management policies

UNCTAD recommends Aid Management Policy (AMP) – a practical new instrument that stresses mutual accountability of donors and recipient governments and aims at reducing transaction costs. Aid Management Policy also provides a framework for strengthening state capacities for effective use of foreign aid. LDCs need to take a bottom-up approach with their aid programmes, focusing on home-grown solutions through maximum use of local knowledge, the report says. This will require strengthening their management and technical skills – a process already under way in a number of LDCs – so that solutions can be tailored to meet local challenges.

LDCs also have to improve their capacities for exploration of theoretical and policy alternatives and think more independently about how to advance development, the report says. There should be space for trial and error in designing and trying policies, and space for governments to adjust their methods to meet local realities over time. The intent is for governments to turn themselves into effective states capable of spurring and managing economic growth through active, home-grown development governance.