Least Developed Countries (LDCs) is the group of most vulnerable nations of the world which was created by United Nations (UN) so as to magnetize special international attention and support to enhance their socioeconomic condition.  The concept of LDCs was originated in the late 1960s and this group was listed by UN in its resolution 2768 (XXVI) of 18^th November 1971. The main aim of LDCs group formation was to maintain long lasting peace and stability by improving their overall status through providing greater financial, technical, expertise and other assistance.

 

                       "Committee for Development Policy (CDP)" of United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) recognizes LDCs as the group of nations with

1)      Low per capita income

2)      Low level of human resource development

3)      Very high degree of economic vulnerability

Therefore, LDC is the term given to the country which exhibits the lowest indicators of socio-economic development with the lowest Human Development Index in the rating of all countries of the world. A country is categorized as LDC if it satisfies following criteria.

1)      Low income having three years average Gross National Product per capita of less than US $ 992 and it must exceed $1,190 to graduate from this list.

2)      Human resource weakness (based on the indicators of nutrition, health, education, and adult literacy).

3)      Economic vulnerability (based on instability of agricultural production, instability of exports of goods and services, merchandise export concentration, handicapped and small economies, economic vulnerability from external shocks and percentage of population displaced by natural disasters).

Therefore, LDCs is the group of developing countries which are greatly structurally handicapped in their national development process and still struggling merely for subsistence living. These countries are also characterized by low economic growth, huge unemployment, low saving and investment, low income and poor infrastructure, weaker institutional capacity, extreme poverty and economy highly vulnerable from external shocks and adverse impact of the global climate change. These countries are highly sidelined in their development process and facing the risk of failing to emerge out from poverty than other countries.

Now, there are 48 countries in LDC category and only three countries graduated out from this category since the formation of LDCs category. The three countries are Botswana (graduated in 1994), Cape Verde (in 2007) and the Maldives (1^st January, 2011). Equatorial Guinea, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are the candidates in the line of promotion from LDC status.

LDC criteria are reviewed in every three years by the CDP of ECOSOC. The countries may graduate out of the LDC classification when indicators exceed these criteria. The United Nations office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing states (UN OHRLLS) coordinates UN assistance and provides advocacy services for LDCs. So far there have been only four LDC conferences and the last one was held in Istanbul of Turkey in May 2011 where the delegates endorsed a goal targeting the promotion of at least half the current LDC within the next ten years: by 2020.

More problems appear in those places where there are already some problems. There are lots of problems in LDCs which makes them more vulnerable. Some of them are listed below.

1)      Low per capita income,

2)      Low saving and investing rate,

3)      Extreme poverty and massive unemployment,

4)      Low level of human resource development,

5)      High degree of economic vulnerability,

6)      Poor infrastructural development,

7)      Higher external dependency regarding economy,

8)      Supply side constraints,

9)      Higher degree of possibility of external economic shocks,

10)  Socio-economic and political instability,

11)   Widening gap between rich and poor,

12)   Prevailing discrimination, injustice and inequality,

13)  Poor human right records,

14)   Internal conflicts and different kinds of terrorism,

15)   Poor governance,

16)  Increasing corruption,

17)  Weak institutional and administrative capacity,

18)  Poor internal resource mobilization,

19)   Demographic explosion,

20)   Poor access to technology,

21)   Brain drain,

22)   Poor export capability,

23)   Lack of expertise,

24)   Lack of public interest in development activities as people are busy in thinking merely about hand mouth problems.

25)   Lack of public expenditure in productive areas,

26)   Lack of security,

27)   Massive political intervention in productive sectors making them unproductive,

28)   Corrupted Bureaucracy,

29)   Weak policy implementation,

30)   Weaker influences in international negotiation processes,

Nepal is also categorized as LDC and have almost all the problems listed above.

 It is not an easy task to solve all these problems at once. However, strong political will is quite necessary to develop a country utilizing its available manpower and resources. There must be some effective bridging organization between Developed countries and LDCs. There must be consistent cooperation among the countries to make LDCs as self-sustained economic powers. We want to see developed countries as a good friend rather than an imperialist power.