Vientiane Times Story Filed: Friday, May 04, 2001 10:38 AM EST UNITED NATIONS, May 3, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Global policy makers will confront the economic isolation and severe poverty of the world's 49 poorest countries at a United Nations conference to be convened in Brussels, Belgium, on May 14-20, U.N. officials said here Thursday. Anwarul Chowdhury, ambassador of Bangladesh who is coordinator for the Group of LDCs, told a press conference here that the failures of the previous two conferences will be also addressed in the Brussels gathering. The previous two conferences failed to put in place a mechanism for the follow-up actions, he said. Alounkeo Kittikhoun, ambassador of the Laos who is the vice chairman of the preparatory committee for the Brussels conference, said that the previous conferences failed to meet the expectations of the LDCs. Action is desperately needed. More than half of the 630 million people in the 49 least developed countries (LDCs) live on less than a U.S. dollar a day. Forty-three percent have no access to safe drinking water and 50 percent are illiterate. Average life expectancy is 51 years. In a global environment where trade and investment have reached unprecedented magnitude, the LDCs are cut off from the mainstream of the global economy. They were left behind in Asia development boom of the 1960s and 1970s and so impressively benefited many countries in Asia and Latin America. Despite a worldwide commitment to fight poverty in recent decades, the number of countries that are desperately poor has risen steadily. In fact, the number of LDCs has nearly doubled during the past 30 years -- from 25 to 49. "The inhabitants of the world's least developed countries wage a daily struggle against abject poverty," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. "They are increasingly marginalized from globalization and the many benefits it can bring. In the battle to rid the world of dehumanizing poverty, the Brussels conference must mark a turning point." Hosted by the European Union, the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries will attempt to help the LDCs gain access to the mainstream of the global economy. The conference will build on pledges made by leaders of the world's nations at the Millennium Summit, held at the U.N. headquarters in New York in September 2000, when leaders of prosperous countries were called upon to take action in three areas of crucial concern to the world's least developed countries. The three areas are duty-and quota-free market access, cancellation of all official bilateral debts, and more generous development assistance. Action in these areas, and the promotion of productive capacity and infrastructure development in the LDCs, will be the focal points of the upcoming conference. Participants will include policy makers, with a leading role taken by leaders from the least developed countries themselves, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations and other sectors of civil society. Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY Copyright � 2001, Xinhua News Agency, all rights reserved. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
