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(Recast) UN chief says world to renew commitment to assist poorest countries

Xinhua, July 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon on Monday said at the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa that the world will make a new commitment to help the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the years to come.

Ban told delegates gathering for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development that the commitment, to be included in a financing framework document adopted at the end of the four-day conference, entails pledges to increase Official Development Assistance (ODA), to set up investment promotion regimes for LDCs, and to operationalize a technology bank for LDCs by 2017.

There are 48 countries around the world listed by UN since 1971 as LDCs, 33 of which are located in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ethiopia. Latest UN statistics indicate that despite a growth of ODA from rich countries to the developing world in the past decade, there is a trend of the money shifting away from the LDCs who need the assistance most. Foreign indirect investment, a key source of international private investment, is also avoiding the LDCs.

World leaders are gathering in Addis Ababa this week to discuss and adopt the Addis Ababa Action Agenda which provides a financing framework for the world's sustainable development in the next 15 years.

In a report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing, estimates of annual investment requirements in infrastructure -- water, agriculture, telecoms, power, transport, buildings, industrial and forestry sectors -- amount to 5 trillion to 7 trillion U.S. dollars globally.

The report said while global savings -- at around 22 trillion U. S. dollars a year -- would be sufficient to meet these needs, resources are currently not allocated adequately.

The world met for the First International Conference on Financing for Development in Mexico in 2002 to establish a financing framework to fund the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With the MDGs to be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be adopted by world leaders in September this year, the Addis Ababa financing meeting is key to secure international commitments to fund the new UN initiative.

Aside from pledged assistance to the LDCs, Ban said the Addis Ababa Action Agenda also includes five other concrete policy commitments: a new social compact for quality investment which calls for delivering social protection and essential public services for all, a new technology facilitation mechanism, global collaboration to stem illicit financial flows, maintaining gender equality, and protecting natural resources, biodiversity and the climate.

"These commitments can bring about real change. But the real test will lie in their implementation," the UN chief said. Endi