Malawi lauded for showing commitment to graduate from least developed nations

Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has been commended for showing maximum commitment to move out from the 46 Least Developed Countries to prosperity in few years to come during the negotiations of new program of Action on Least Developed Countries in the United States of America.

Acting head high Representative for the Least Development Countries, Landlocked Developing countries and Small Island developing States, Heidi Schroderus-Fox made the commendation during an audience with President Chakwera in New York Wednesday ahead of the fifth UN Least developed countries conference.

Said Schroderus – Fox: “It was such a pleasure to meet President of Malawi, Dr Lazarus Chakwera. I am very impressed with the commitment of Malawi’s leadership that has played during the negotiations of the new program of action.”

She said Malawi being the head of the global LDCs, throughout the negotiations, has been on top of the game representing the group with strength and force and there is great opportunity to adapt the new program of action for 10 years.

However, Schroderus – Fox added that the implementation will bring true change to the people’s lives and livelihoods in Least Developed Countries and it will also bring them out of categories of the LDCs saying no country will remain in least of country for ever.

“Every country wants to move forward and what we are doing right now is working on  bringing  all the partners to the table to implement the new program of action that includes the private sector, all international financial organisations, development partners and all UN funds program agencies, as well as youth engagement  and women, which is very important,” Schroderus – Fox said.

Fox added that a country, like Malawi, which shows utter willingness to graduate from being ranked as a least developed country will do so with the assistance of the new programme of action.

She pointed out that the aim is to build a strong partnership so as to make the Doha program of action not just a piece of paper but to bring real life to it that can bring change to the countries.

She further said that the graduation of countries is the goal of the new action plan that all Least Developed Countries must achieve.

“Sixteen countries are in the pipeline of graduation and the Doha program of action have very ambitious goals. Fifteen more countries will do so during the next phase of Doha implementation of action.

Schroderus – Fox explained that through all this the implementation of action of 193 member states of UN will ensure that through this implementation countries will graduate and hopefully not in the next ten  years most of the countries should be there and then we no longer have this category of LDCs.

Fox said to achieve this, her office will be looking up to close down its operations in the near future as supporting the LDCs will no longer be needed since the countries would have been graduated from being classified as least developed.

 “All countries in the world must be developed and none should be left behind. This is what the Doha program of action is all about,” she said.

Schroderus – Fox said there is a significant opportunity from the international telecommunication union that they are working on digitalisation of LDCs and that they have announced pledges over 100 million dollars on making sure that access to digital services companies like Microsoft, Vodaphone are being part of the implementation of the Doha program of action and this will make a real difference at the country level.

Later in the day the President held several meetings with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, President of the General Assembly Abdulla Shahid and UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner among others at the UN headquarters buildings.

President Chakwera is expected to attend the part one of the Least Developed Countries number five (conference LDC5) on Thursday 17th March 2022 and will later meet with SADC Ambassadors to discuss issues affecting the region among others.