30 May 2023

Beyond COVID-19, landlocked countries of Africa are faced with a task to propose new partnerships and solutions to help advance their developmental goals. 

In pursuit to achieving this, the first major international conference on Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) since the advent of the global pandemic, kick-started in Gaborone, Monday.

In his remarks, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi said Africa’s landlocked countries were locked out of global trade and the global response to COVID and climate change.

He said there was need to work together to overcome overarching challenges, adding that the conference would explore ways to help tap into benefits of investment, finance, technology and services to improve output in agriculture, industry and service sectors.

He added that Africa’s LLDCs contend with many development challenges due to their lack of direct territorial access to sea, remoteness and distance from world markets.

Additionally, Mr Molebatsi said these countries faced higher trade costs than their transit neighbours, limited infrastructure, delays at borders and customs and often undiversified economies and export markets.

UN High Representative, Ms Rabab Fatima said more than half of the 32 landlocked developing countries were in Africa, as such Botswana conference paved way for the Third UN Conference on LLDCs, taking place in Kigali, Rwanda next year.

She said further regional meetings would be held this year in Paraguay for Latin America and in Thailand for Asia and Europe. She said the Kigali conference would undertake a review of the implementation of the Vienna Programme of Action for LLDCs (VPoA), a major international development compact agreed in 2014.

Ms Fatima said since then, progress towards its goals had been mixed with improvements in transport and digital connectivity, but less progress made in export share growth.

In his submission, acting executive secretary of the UN  Economic Commission for Africa, Mr Antonio Pedro said though African LLDCs had made some notable progress, this has not been substantial enough to reach the goals and targets set out in the VPoA.

He said the regional review meeting afforded the continent an opportunity to reflect and look inward in proposing elements that should go into a renewed or successor framework that would effectively respond to the unique challenges faced by African LLDCs.

The meeting brought together ministers and senior government officials from LLDCs across Africa alongside representatives of transit countries, development partners and the UN system. Ends