Media Home
UN Web TV
UN PhotoUnifeed
UN / LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
STORY: UN / LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
TRT: 01:14
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 19 NOVEMBER 2019, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations headquarters
19 NOVEMBER 2019, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Chantal Line Carpentier, Chief, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD,) New York Office:
“The LDC do not create enough domestic resource mobilization and they need to jump-start their economies so that they can actually create more production, adding more productive capacity so they can actually tax themselves, their own domestic economy so they can generate the resources. And as we can see, they don’t have the capacity to do it, and the aid that they get does not go towards debt productive capacity.”
4. Med shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Chantal Line Carpentier, Chief, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD,) New York Office:
“Despite the fact that the LDC’s have actually increased their fiscal effort in terms of their tax reform to be able now to collect fifteen percent of their GDP in taxes, which is the required or the recommended level, they are actually above that , they are now at nineteen percent, but they still have very limited fiscal space because of a weak growth in their countries and therefore a weak tax base.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. Zoom out, end of presser
Least developed countries (LDCs), the world’s most impoverished nations, should proactively ensure external finance from all sources is directed to national development priorities. This approach is the best way to manage their aid dependency and eventually escape it, according to the 2019 edition of the Least Developed Countries Report.
At a press conference today (19 Nov) at UN Headquarters, the Chief of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) New York office, Chantal Line Carpentier, said “the LDC do not create enough domestic resource mobilization and they need to jump-start their economies so that they can actually create more production, adding more productive capacity so they can actually tax themselves, their own domestic economy so they can generate the resources.”
Carpentier added that LDCs currently “don’t have the capacity to do it, and the aid that they get does not go towards debt productive capacity.”
The UNCTAD official said, “despite the fact that the LDC’s have actually increased their fiscal effort in terms of their tax reform to be able now to collect fifteen percent of their GDP in taxes, which is the required or the recommended level, they are actually above that , they are now at nineteen percent, but they still have very limited fiscal space because of a weak growth in their countries and therefore a weak tax base.”
According to UNCTAD, for LDCs to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, they should take ownership of their development agenda and manage the allocation of external development finance in alignment with their national development priorities.
The international community also needs to step up its support towards this common goal, the report states.
LDCs account for fifteen of the twenty most aid-dependent countries in the world due to persistent shortfalls in their domestic savings, among other factors, according to the report.
Download
There is no media available to download.
