This paper reviews the role of climate change vulnerability in identifying least developed countries (LDCs). Taking a sustainable development perspective, it argues that climate change should be seen as an aggravating factor of existing handicaps and many indicators used to identify LDCs already capture relevant structural vulnerabilities to climate change. However, the paper proposes some refinements in the LDC criteria to better capture vulnerabilities from natural disasters and in coastal areas. These refinements affected the vulnerability ranking in the recent triennial review, but had no impact the eligibility of countries for inclusion in and graduation from the LDC category.
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CDP Background Paper No. 14
By the Secretariat of the Committee for Development Policy
This report makes some preliminary suggestions for actions to be taken by the international development community and the graduating countries to strengthen the process of preparing for graduation from the least developed country (LDC) category. The report also offers concrete proposals for addressing in a systematic manner, the current concerns among LDCs about the ad-hoc nature of the extension and phasing out of measures provided by certain development and trading partners.
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This paper reviews conflict as one of potential factors that could be incorporated in the identification of least developed countries (LDCs). It is not clear whether conflict can be considered as a structurally predetermined handicap as those identified in LDC criteria. More importantly, even if countries may be caught in a conflict trap, adding conflict indicators to the LDC criteria does not provide additional insights to enhance our understanding of the category. And adding conflict indicators is unlikely to introduce changes in country classification. Many of the factors associated with conflict are already incorporated in the indicators used to identify LDCs, and, therefore, the…
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