Chakwera talks tough at meeting of poorest nations

President Lazarus Chakwera will soon hand over leadership of Least Developed Countries (LDCs), but these 46 world’s poorest nations need more to exit the 50-year-old group.

Malawi is expected to hand over chairmanship of the league of fragile economies to Nepal at the fifth UN Conference on LDCs slated for Monday to Friday in Doha, Qatar.

Speaking during a heads of State meeting in the Qatari capital yesterday, Chakwera said no one is happy to belong to “the group that solely exists to ensure it does not exist at all”.

The President asked his peers, including 33 African LDCs, to unite to beat hunger and poverty in the countries that play home to one in eight people globally.

Chakwera could not hide the pain of nations that have spent half a century in the unenviable category, saying their common suffering is another reason they have to unite to escape extreme poverty.

“The LDC group is the only body of nations that exists to end its own existence. It’s the only body of nations that none of us want to belong to indefinitely…but we all want to escape and graduate from,” he said.

The meeting has been twice postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected the poor nations slowed by climate change, debts and structural challenges.

The summit comes at a time 16 LDCs, excluding Malawi, are on the cusp of graduating into middle income economies.

The UN envoy for LDCs expects 15 more to transition by the expiry of the one-year-old Doha Programme of Action in 2031.

“Our common suffering is another reason we have to work together till we can walk in the sunlight of property,” said Chakwera.

The call for global solidarity to end poverty sets the tone for the meeting taking place half a century after the UN General Assembly created the LDC group to lobby for global support for limping economies to take a leap and integrate into the global economy.

The meeting focuses on efforts to flip the script and strengthen partnership for investment in turning LDCs prospects from potential to prosperity.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged wealthy nations to honour their financial pledges to LDCs, a “group created with a lot of promises which remain broken”, according to Chakwera.

The UN chief said “the countries with the least need support the most” now as they represent one in eight people worldwide, but remain trapped in “vicious cycles that make development difficult, if not impossible”.   

He stated: “Economic development is impossible when countries are starved for resources, drowning in debt, and still struggling with the historic injustice of an unequal Covid-19 response.”

The skyrocketing food prices fuelled by the war in Ukraine have drawn back efforts to ease the cost-of-living crisis.

Guterres said the impacts of conflicts, unsustainable debts, droughts, hunger and extreme poverty personify “a perfect storm perpetuating poverty and injustice” in the countries held back by decisions made “far beyond” their borders.

“Ending this storm requires massive, sustained investment,” he said.

The UN chief took a swipe at a global financial system “designed by wealthy countries, largely to their benefit”.

He told at least 42 LDCs leaders in attendance: “For your countries, progress on the SDGs, starting with the eradication of extreme poverty and ending hunger, is about more than lines on a chart leading to 2030. It’s a matter of life and death.”