CDP Policy Review series

This article connects the work that underpinned the Agenda?s emergence with the continuing challenges of its implementation as a process of norm making and norm evolution

This policy brief synthesizes recent research, showing that Bangladesh?s vital pharmaceutical industry would be threatened if the country had to adhere fully to WTO rules upon graduation from LDC status.

As countries' concerns about graduation persist, the potential for additional tension has widened, particularly now that an increasing number of LDCs approach graduation

The paper investigates the trend based on diverse scenarios, to shed light on the possible graduation cases by 2030, and implications on how much effort is needed to accelerate the development progress of LDCs

This paper provides an overview on the interlinkage between Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) achievement and Least Developed Country (LDC) graduation

This paper analyzes the advantages that LDCs have derived from the various LDC-specific international support measures due to their LDC status. It identifies the reasons why some UN development system organizations may not use the LDC category in their allocation of development assistance and support measures.The analysis focuses on support from the UNDS organizations related to ODA and general support measures. Trade related support measures fall under the purview of the World Trade Organization, and are not discussed in this paper. The analysis was undertaken in the context of a UN General Assembly mandate in response to the Mid-term Review of the Implementation of the Istanbul Programme of Action for the LDCs for the Decade 2011-2020.

The paper reviews the provisions within the WTO multilateral trade regime which impact on the policy space for LDCs which are interested in pursuing industrial policies as latecomers. It finds that LDCs are more constrained by lack of capacity rather than by WTO provisions, in contrast to more advanced developing countries.

The paper investigates the effectiveness of trade preferences for LDCs. It confirms that overall trade preferences for LDCs increase LDC exports. However, it also finds that effectiveness differs across the nine providers included in the study (EU, US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, the Russian Federation and Turkey) and that only a subset of LDCs is able to benefit from trade preferences.

The paper overviews the evidence of good governance institutional reform agenda on the development outcomes of LDCs. For building development governance capacity in LDC for achieving sustainable development goals, successful examples suggest a few key common features: (1) existence of government/political leadership; (2) organizational set up for achieving national development goals; (3) structural transformation from poor human capital base and low quality of the bureaucracies. The lessons learned from these examples cannot simply be transmitted to other LDCs, but should be seen as practical policy lessons.