UN Conference on Trade and Development Releases 2014 Report on Least Developed Countries (November 27, 2014) [1]
On November 27, 2014, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report [3], “The Least Developed Countries Report 2014: Growth with Structural Transformation,” about the progress of the forty-eight least-developed countries (LDCs) towards the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs). According to the press release [4], only the Lao People’s Democratic Republic “is on track to achieve all seven of the MDG targets analyzed in the report, and only four [LDCs in Africa] are on track to meet even a majority of these targets.” With the goal of eradicating poverty worldwide by 2030, the report stresses the need to “[mobilize] resources for investment, [direct] these resources towards transforming economies and [establish] macroeconomic policies that promote investment and demand growth.” The report focuses on how to structurally reform LDCs to promote both growth and development, especially “increasing labour productivity in productive activities and shifting labour from activities with low productivity to more dynamic activities with higher productivity.”