Committee for Development Policy (CDP)

The event was a Consultative Meeting on Accelerating Progress Toward Graduation from the LDC Category

CDP Secretariat made a presentation on ‘The Needs and Priorities of LDCs in Economic Transformation’ at the meeting

CDP contribution to understand leaving the LDC category and T conceptualizing and implementing new support measures for highly vulnerable LDCs

CDP Secretariat made a presentation on the impact of graduation from the least developed country category

The CDP’s deliberations on LDC-related issues were presented to Council members

Possible lessons learnt from building productive capacity in countries that are about to graduate or have recently graduated from the LDC category

This paper provides an overview of the conceptual and empirical issues involved in the overarching goal of "leaving no one behind" (LNOB). It proposes ways to operationalize LNOB, discusses whether to take a country-focused or person-focused approach, examines various (multidimensional) ways to measure those who are left behind, argues for grounding LNOB on intrinsic and instrumental reasons, suggests ways to identify those at risk of being left behind, and discusses difficult trade-offs with other SDGs for an agenda focused on LNOB.

One of the pillars of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the pledge to ?leave no one behind?. This paper argues that we must recognise that many people throughout the world are not just being left behind. They are being pushed even further behind, and their levels of well-being are falling, often in ways from which it is impossible to fully recover.

The UN Resolution heralding the Sustainable Development Goals pledges to leave no one behind, and moreover "to reach the furthest behind first". This priority echoes the priority to the worst-off that is being discussed in philosophy, economics and related disciplines, but also the pleas of many actors who represent or fight for the most disadvantaged populations. This paper argues that serious theories do support such a priority and that the best policies implementing this priority do not necessarily involve the most intuitive anti-poverty targeted measures.