Fourth United Nations Forum on the Future of the Least Developed Countries

He was invited to speak on the panel dedicated to monitoring the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action for the LDCs (DPoA).

He emphasized that, beyond the relevance of the diagnosis provided by the DPoA regarding the challenges faced by LDCs, the key question now is how monitoring mechanisms can move beyond diagnosis alone.

He stressed two main points.

• First, beyond properly measuring progress, it would be useful for the monitoring of the DPoA to include an assessment of the sustainability of that progress — in other words, the capacity of LDCs to absorb the shocks to which they are particularly exposed. It is in this spirit that several studies conducted by Ferdi point to the need for better integrating countries’ structural vulnerability into the design of development public policies. Along the same lines, Ferdi is establishing an Observatory of Vulnerabilities.
• Second, the monitoring of the DPoA could also place greater emphasis on assessing whether international support to LDCs is commensurate with their high level of vulnerability. At a time when concessional development resources are sharply declining, while the range of challenges faced by poor and vulnerable countries has never been greater (development, global public goods, security), the question not only of the volume of resources, but also of the relevance of their geographical allocation, appears more crucial than ever.

The recent communiqué issued by the G7 development ministers explicitly calls on development actors to concentrate concessional resources where they are most needed, particularly in the least developed and most vulnerable countries. This is precisely the focus of many of Ferdi’s studies, especially its most recent work (B293, AFD Research Papers No. 402).

This session was devoted to the high-level midterm review of the Doha Programme of Action, which took place in Doha, Qatar, in March 2027. The discussion focused on monitoring the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action (DPOA), the data used to measure progress in structural transformation, vulnerability assessments, as well as the policies and partnerships supporting productive transformation.