Buhari wants least developed countries to have duty-free access to the market

The 46 least developed countries in the globe have requested duty-free and quota-free market access for their products from developed and developing countries, respectively.

Including them into local and international value chains, he claimed, would be ensured.

The call was made by Buhari in Doha, Qatar, at the UN Conference of Least Developed Countries, according to the President’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement.

Buhari criticised the way the global financial system is now set up, saying that it burdens the most fragile nations with an unmanageable amount of external debt.

He cautioned that LDCs’ ability to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals would be extremely challenging under such debt burdens (SDGs).

“The world joined together in 2015 to ratify the 2030 Agenda for Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

“There was no question that it was very ambitious and that it would take the complete commitment of leaders from all over the world for the SDGs to be accomplished in the anticipated time frame.

For many nations, especially the Least Developed Countries, the prospects of fulfilling the SDGs remain dim eight years later.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing threat posed by climate change, and most recently the crisis between Russia and Ukraine have all added to the challenges in reaching the SDGs.

The least developed nations frequently have developmental vulnerabilities and difficulties that are not always of their own making.

They provide enormous barriers to their development efforts, necessitating the need for swift and effective assistance to enable them realise their potential and increase socioeconomic resilience.

The Doha Plan of Action, which aims to help LDCs leave their current categorization, can be used to provide this aid, he claims.

Buhari urged developed nations, members of civil society, the private sector, and the business community to collaborate with LDCs in order to give them the resources and capacity to produce the development outcomes required to carry out the goals of the 2030 Agenda in the areas of the economy, the social system, and the environment.

He provided a list of actions that would support LDCs’ long-term development and prosperity as well as their recovery from COVID-19 and SDG achievement.

The SDGs must be achieved in these nations in order to assure their prosperity, and there are a number of urgent areas we must concentrate on.

“First, COVID-19 has shown us that cooperation is essential if we are to prevent illnesses from spreading in LDCs, as doing so would have a detrimental effect on economic development, productivity, and productivity in general.

Thus, it is necessary to make regulatory and financial provisions to guarantee that everyone, regardless of income, has access to healthcare and vaccinations.

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To supply proper equipment, test kits, vaccines, and treatments for diseases, we must also collaborate with medical equipment and pharmaceutical businesses, he added.

Buhari emphasised the necessity of changes to the global financial system that give LDCs’ needs top priority while discussing the issue of the growing debt burden.

He agreed with the Secretary-General of the UN’s assessment of the global financial system as a “unfair debt architecture that not only charges poor countries much higher interest rates to borrow on the market than advanced economies, but downgrades them when they even think of renegotiating their debt or applying for debt relief.”

Regarding trade, the president stated: “It is important to put in place modalities to facilitate transit cooperation, technology transfer, and access to global e-commerce platforms, as they are critical for the integration of LDCs into the regional and global value chains and communications technology services.

“It is essential to achieving the SDGs and promoting security and economic prosperity to adopt a global coordination mechanism to systematically monitor illicit financial flows and to engender support for a United Nations International convention on tax matters to eliminate base erosion and profit shifting, tax evasion, capital gains tax, and other tax abuses,” he said.

Buhari expressed confidence that the Doha Programme of Action would accelerate LDC exports by 2031 by facilitating their access to foreign markets in accordance with the World Trade Organization Facilitation Agreement. This was in response to a question about what Nigeria expected from the Conference.

Buhari claims that even though LDCs make the least contribution to the causes of climate change, they nonetheless suffer disproportionately.

The future of the children must be secured, he continued, by placing a high priority on reducing global emissions and working resolutely to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

“We must also commit to assisting in the resilience building in developing nations, while also giving the necessary technical as well as financial support for a just transition to renewable energy,” he said.

He asserts that climate change continues to be one of the greatest existential risks to humanity today, endangering lives and livelihoods and taking many various, detrimental forms, including temperature rise, sea level rise, flooding, drought, and desertification.

Significant biodiversity loss has also been caused by it. The Lake Chad Basin region, for example, is suffering greatly as a result of conflicts that have been aggravated by climate change and unplanned migration.

So, despite making the smallest contributions to its causes, the least developed nations continue to experience disproportionately harsh climate change effects.

“With forecasts that there would be an increased trend going forward, deaths from climate-related disasters are higher in the most vulnerable countries.

“We must continue to concentrate on how to best assure the provision of security, education, health, and other fundamental services to our people, in order to guarantee a prosperous future for everybody,” he said.

Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir, was invited by Buhari, who praised the State of Qatar for hosting the Conference and expressed his gratitude.

In addition, he thanked the UN for continuing to support the LDCs and for the outstanding way the conference was organised.

Even though Nigeria is not listed among the Least Developed Countries, the president also provided an explanation for his attendance at the meeting.

Nigeria is present to demonstrate solidarity and support for the LDCs as they work to fulfil the Sustainable Development Goals, especially during this decade of action when no one should be left behind, he said. (NAN)