Least Developed Countries account for less than 1 percent of world trade. Credit: Ali Mkumbwa/Unsplash

By Deodat Maharaj
GEBZE, Türkiye, Aug 22 2025 (IPS)

Artificial intelligence and the use of frontier technologies are already transforming trade and boosting prosperity, particularly for developed and some developing countries. This ranges from the digital exchange of documents, the digitalisation of trade processes and leveraging online platforms to fast-track cross-border trade.

The rapid adoption of new technologies will further consolidate the dominance of world trade by developed economies, which currently account for roughly 74 percent of global trade, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The world’s 44 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), with a population of an estimated 1.4 billion people, are seeing a different trajectory altogether. According to the World Trade Organisation, they account for less than 1 percent of the world’s merchandise trade. LDCs continue to reel from the relentless onslaught of bad news, including increased protectionist barriers.

Deodat Maharaj, Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries.

UNCTAD has estimated that tariffs on LDCs will have a devastating consequence, possibly leading to an estimated 54 percent reduction in the exports from the world’s poorest countries.

In this dire situation, exacerbated by declining overseas development assistance, what does an LDC do to survive in this difficult trade environment?

To start with, they must continue to advocate globally for fairer terms of trade. At the same time, they need to be more aggressive in addressing matters for which they have control. Otherwise, the status quo will leave their people in a perpetually disadvantageous situation. Imagine paying three times more than your competitors just to ship a single crate of goods across a border. For millions of entrepreneurs in the world’s LDCs, it is the everyday cost of doing business. Technology offers a way out in reducing these high costs.

Indeed, when the international community gathered in Sevilla for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in July 2025, one truth stood out: Technology is no longer a luxury—it is a prerequisite for effective participation in global trade. The outcome document was clear that for the world’s 44 LDCs, bridging infrastructure gaps, building domestic technological capacity, and leveraging science, technology, and innovation are vital to unlocking trade opportunities.

So, given the challenges and opportunities, what forms the core elements of an action agenda for LDCs to leverage trade to generate jobs and opportunities for their people?

Firstly, there is a need to pivot to digital solutions, which can dramatically reduce trade costs and open new markets. According to the World Bank, paperless customs and single-window systems have been proven to cut clearance times by up to 50 percent, reducing bureaucracy that stifles commerce. In Benin, automating port procedures reduced processing time from 18 days to just three days (World Bank). E-commerce platforms, when paired with secure payment systems and targeted training, have shown remarkable potential.

Secondly, invest in digital infrastructure. The data suggest that LDCs still have a lot of catching up to do. The solution is for development partners and the international financial institutions to steer more resources in this area with a fixed percentage of resources, say, 15 percent of a country’s portfolio dedicated to boosting digital infrastructure.

Thirdly, focus on value addition and reduce transition away from the export of raw commodities. This in turn requires the human resource capacity to spur innovation and creativity. Boosting investment in research and development can pay rich dividends.

According to the World Economic Forum, LDCs invest less than 1 percent of GDP in research and development compared to developed countries. The Republic of Korea invests 4%.

Finally, for LDCs to enter the technological age, their businesses must lead the way. It is difficult to do so in some countries like Burundi, where internet penetration is a mere 5 percent of the population. The average internet penetration is around 38 percent. So, in addition to digital infrastructure, support must be provided to micro-, small and medium-scale enterprises to benefit from the opportunities provided by technology to boost trade, thereby creating jobs and opportunities. This includes the establishment of incubators to support this business sector, boosting their technological capacities to trade and profile their businesses on digital platforms, and helping them to deliver services created by the digital economy. Rwanda has been a pioneer in this regard.

Of course, technology alone will not address all the challenges faced by LDCs. However, by delivering cost-efficient solutions, it can help level the playing field and drive transformation. It is time for the international community and development partners to back their words with action in helping LDCs advance this agenda. Since LDCs represent an emerging market of 1.4 billion people, when they rise, everyone else will rise with them.

Deodat Maharaj, a national of Trinidad and Tobago is the Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries and can be reached at: deodat.maharaj@un.org

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Development aid flows were stable in 2014, after hitting an all-time high in 2013, but aid to the poorest countries continued to fall, according to new figures released on Apr. 8 by the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

Net official development assistance (ODA) from DAC members totalled 135.2 billion dollars, level with a record 135.1 billion dollars in 2013, though marking a 0.5 percent decline in real terms. Net ODA as a share of gross national income (GNI) was 0.29 percent, also on a par with 2013.

However, bilateral aid – which equates to roughly two-thirds of total ODA – to the least developed countries fell by 16 percent in real terms to 25 billion dollars, according to provisional DAC data.“European governments first promised to deliver 0.7 percent of their national income to support poor countries when Richard Nixon was President of America and the Beatles were topping the charts” – Hilary Jeune, Oxfam EU Policy Advisor

The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) is made up mainly of European countries plus the European Union as a member in its own right, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

Five of the DAC’s 28 member countries – Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom – continued to exceed the United Nations target of keeping ODA at 0.7 percent of GNI, while 13 countries reported a rise in net ODA, with the biggest increases in Finland, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

On the other hand, 15 DAC members reported lower ODA, with the biggest declines in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

“ODA remains crucial for the poorest countries and we must reverse the trend of declining aid to the least developed countries. OECD ministers recently committed to provide more development assistance to the countries most in need. Now we must make sure we deliver on that commitment,” said DAC Chair Erik Solheim.

Reacting to the latest DAC figures for Europe, Oxfam said that “the leadership of a handful of countries is masking the failure of the majority of European governments to deliver on their overseas aid promises”, with aid stagnating, leaving millions of poor people at risk

“In times of ballooning challenges for the world’s poorest, it is striking that European overseas aid has stagnated”, said Hilary Jeune, Oxfam’s EU Policy Advisor.

“This picture would be worse if it were not for the leadership of a handful of countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, Luxembourg and Denmark, masking the poor performance of the majority. Wealthy countries, such as France and Austria, have failed to uphold their commitments to the world’s most vulnerable people.”

France has cut its aid budget for the fourth year in a row and Spain’s overseas aid spending is at its lowest level since 1989, said Oxfam. Germany and Finland have made some progress but they are still off track on reaching their commitments, while the Netherlands is no longer contributing 0.7 percent of its GNI.

“European governments first promised to deliver 0.7 percent of their national income to support poor countries when Richard Nixon was President of America and the Beatles were topping the charts,” added Jeune.

“In the 45 years since, only a handful of European Union countries have delivered on this promise. Yet with some one billion people still living in poverty and climate change posing huge new development challenges, the need for overseas aid is greater than ever before.”

Oxfam called on the global community to agree ambitious new development goals and a new deal for tackling climate change this year, including at the third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, in July.

“In Addis, EU Finance Ministers should demonstrate genuine leadership by being the first ones to re-commit to providing 0.7 percent of national income as overseas aid and outline how they will deliver on this promise, including setting a clear timetable.”

Oxfam said that they must also “put new money on the table from their budgets and from new sources like financial transaction taxes and the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme to help poor countries cope with the devastating impacts of climate change.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

The “fragility” of the World Trade Organization’s ‘Bali package’ was brought into the open at the weekend meeting in Sydney, Australia, of trade ministers from the world’s 20 major economies (G20).

The Bali package is a trade agreement resulting from the 9th Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Bali, Indonesia, in December last year, and forms part of the Doha Development Round, which started in 2001.

The G20 group of countries includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.“… the Bali package is not just about trade facilitation and it also includes other issues ... That was the premise on which the developing countries agreed to trade facilitation and it has to be self-balancing” – South African trade minister Rob Davies

During the Sydney meeting, India and South Africa challenged the industrialised countries present to come clean on implementation of the issues concerning the poor countries in agriculture and development, according to participants present at the two-day meeting.

Ahead of the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane, Australia, in mid-November, Sydney hosted the trade ministerial meeting to discuss implementation of the Bali package, particularly the trade facilitation agreement (TFA). The TFA has been at the heart of the industrialised countries’ trade agenda since 1996.

More importantly, Australia, as host of the November meeting, has decided to prepare the ground for pursuing the new trade agenda based on global value chains in which trade facilitation and services related to finance, information, telecommunications, and logistics play a main role.

“I said the Bali package is not just about trade facilitation and it also includes other issues,” South Africa’s trade minister Rob Davies told IPS Monday. “That was the premise on which the developing countries agreed to trade facilitation and it has to be self-balancing.”

Davies said that “the issue is that while South Africa doesn’t need any assistance, many developing and poor countries have to make investments and implement new procedures [because of the TFA]. What was there in the [TF] agreement is a series of best endeavour provisions in terms of technical and financial support together with best endeavour undertakings in terms of issues pertaining to least developed countries in agriculture and so on.”

Over the last few months, several industrialised countries, including the United States, have said that they can address issues in the Bali package concerning the poor countries as part of the Doha Single Undertaking, which implies that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

The specific issues that concern the interests of the least-developed countries include elimination of cotton subsidies and unimpeded market access for cotton exported by the African countries, preferential rules of origin for the poorest countries to export industrial products to the rich countries, and preferential treatment to services and services suppliers of least developed countries, among others.

“Even if there is an early harvest there has to be an outcome on other issues in the Bali package,” the South African minister argued.

There is lot of concern at the G20 meeting that if the trade facilitation protocol is not implemented by the end of this month, the WTO would be undermined.

“What we said from South Africa is to commit on the delivery of the outcomes in the Bali package,” Davies told IPS. “And a number of developing countries present at the meeting agreed with our formulation that there has to be substantial delivery of the outcomes in the Bali package.”

At the Sydney meeting, the industrialised countries pushed hard for a common stand on the protocol for implementing the Trade Facilitation Agreement by July 31. The TF protocol is a prerequisite for implementing the trade facilitation agreement by the end of July 2015.

The United States also cautioned that if there is no outcome by the end of this month, the post-Bali package would face problems. “Talking about post-Bali agenda while failing to implement the TFA isn’t just putting the cart before the horse, it’s slaughtering the horse,” U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman tweeted from Sydney.

The industrialised countries offered assurances that they would address the other issues in the Bali package, including public distribution programmes for food security, raised by developing countries. But they were not prepared to wait for any delay in the implementation of the TF agreement.

Over the last four months, the developing and poorest countries have realised that their issues in the Bali package are being given short shrift while all the energies are singularly focused on implementing the trade facilitation agreement.

The African countries are the first to point out the glaring mismatch between implementation of the TFA on the one hand and lack of any concerted effort to address other issues in the Bali package on the other. The African Union has suggested implementing the TFA on a provisional basis until all other issues in the Doha Development Agenda are implemented.

The industrialised countries mounted unprecedented pressure and issued dire threats to the African countries to back off from their stand on the provisional agreement. At the AU leaders meeting in Malibu, Equatorial Guinea, last month, African countries were forces to retract from their position on the provisional agreement.

However, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Uganda insisted on a clear linkage between the TFA and the Doha agenda.

India is fighting hard, along with other developing countries in the G33 coalition of developing countries on trade and economic issues, for a permanent solution to exempt public distribution programmes for food security from WTO rules in agriculture.

New Delhi has found out over the last six months that the industrialised countries are not only creating hurdles for finding a simple and effective solution for public distribution programmes but continue to raise extraneous issues that are well outside the purview of the mandate to arrive at an agreement on food security.

India announced on July 2 that it will not join consensus unless all issues concerning agriculture and development are addressed along with the TF protocol.

India’s new trade minister Nirmala Sitaraman, along with South Africa, made it clear in Sydney that they could only join consensus on the protocol once they have complete confidence that the remaining issues in the Bali package are fully addressed.

Against this backdrop, the G20 trade ministers on Saturday failed to bridge their differences arising from their colliding trade agendas.

The developing countries, particularly India, want firm commitment that there is a permanent solution on public distribution programmes for food security along with all other issues concerning development, an Indian official told IPS.

Framing rules at the World Trade Organization for maintaining public stockholding programmes for food security in developing countries is not an easy task, and for Ambassador Jayant Dasgupta, former Indian trade envoy to the WTO, “this is even more so when countries refuse to acknowledge the real problem and hide behind legal texts and interpretations in a slanted way to suit their interests.”

“The major problem is that the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) was negotiated in early 1990s and there are many issues which were not taken into account then,” says Ambassador Dasgupta, who played a prominent role in articulating the developing countries’ position on food security in the run-up to the WTO’s ninth ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia, last year.

“If the WTO has to carry on as an institution catering for international trade and its member states, especially the developing and least-developed countries, the rules have to be modified to ensure food security and livelihood security for hundreds of millions of poor farmers,” Ambassador Dasgupta told IPS Thursday.

Ironically, the rich countries – which continue to provide tens of billions of dollars for subsidies to their farmers – are insisting on inflexible disciplines for public stockholding programmes in the developing world.“Credible disciplines for food security are vital for the survival of poor farmers in the developing countries who cannot be left to the vagaries of market forces and extortion by middlemen” – Ambassador Jayant Dasgupta, former Indian trade envoy to the WTO

The United States, a major subsidiser of farm programmes in the world and charged for distorting global cotton trade by the WTO’s Appellate Body, has called for a thorough review of farm policies of  developing countries seeking a permanent solution for public stockholding programmes to address food security.

“Food security is an enormously complex topic affected by a number of policies, including trade distorting domestic support, export subsidies, export restrictions, and high tariffs,” says a United States proposal circulated at the WTO on July 14.

“These policies [in the developing countries],” continues the proposal, “can impede the food security of food insecure peoples throughout the world.” The United States insists that food security policies must be consistent with the rules framed in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations that came into effect in 1995.

“Public stockholding is only one tool used to address food security, and disciplines regarding its application are already addressed in the Agreement on Agriculture,” the United States maintains.

The agriculture agreement of the trade body was largely based on the understandings reached between the two largest subsidisers – the European Union and the United States – which culminated in what is called the Blair House Agreement in 1992. The major subsidisers were provided a “peace clause” for ten years (1995-2005) from facing any challenges to their farm subsidy programmes at the WTO.

The AOA also includes complex rules regarding how its members, especially industrialised countries, must reduce their most-distorting farm subsidies.

In the face of increased legal challenges at the WTO and also demands raised for steep cuts in subsidies during the current Doha trade negotiations, several industrialised countries shifted their subsidies from what are called most trade-distorting “amber box” measures to “green box” payments which are exempted from disputes. Jacques Berthelot, a French civil society activist, says that the United States has placed some of its illegal subsidies into the green box.

When it comes to disciplines on food security, however, the United States says it is important to ensure that “[food security] programmes do not distort trade or adversely affect the food security of other members.”  The United States has suggested several “elements” for a Work Programme on food security, including the issue of public stockholding programmes, for arriving at a permanent solution. Washington wants a thorough review of how countries have implemented food security in developing countries.

The U.S. proposal, says a South American farm trade official, is aimed at “frustrating” the developing countries from arriving at a simple and effective solution that would enable them to continue their public stockholding programmes without many hurdles. “The United States is interested in preserving the Uruguay Round rules but not address the issues raised by the developing countries in the Doha Round of trade negotiations that seek to address concerns raised by developing countries,” the official adds.

The G-33 group – with over 45 developing and least-developed countries – has brought the food security issue to the centre-stage at the WTO. Over the last two years, the G-33, led by Indonesia with China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Cuba and Peru among others, has called for updating the external reference price based on 1986-88 prices to ensure that they can continue with their public stockholding programmes under what is called de minimis support for developing countries.

Following the G-33’s insistence on a solution for public stockholding programmes for food security, which became a make-or-break issue at the WTO’s Bali ministerial meeting, trade ministers had agreed on a decision “with the aim of making recommendations for a permanent solution.” The ministers directed their negotiators to arrive at a solution in four years.

Over the last six months, there has been little progress in addressing the core issues in the Bali package raised by developing countries, including food security. “We are deeply concerned that the Ministerial Decision on Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes is getting side-lined,“ India told members at the WTO on July 2.

“In this and other areas, instead of engaging in meaningful discussion, certain members have been attempting to divert attention to the policies and programmes of selected developing country members,” says New Delhi, emphasising that “the issues raised are in no way relevant to the core mandate that we have been provided in the Bali Decisions.”

At a time when the industrialised countries want rapid implementation of the complex agreement on trade facilitation, their continued stonewalling tactics on the issues raised by developing countries has created serious doubts whether food security issue will be addressed in a meaningful manner at all.

“Credible disciplines for food security are vital for the survival of poor farmers in the developing countries who cannot be left to the vagaries of market forces and extortion by middlemen,” says Ambassador Dasgupta. “The delay in addressing food security will pose problems for millions of people below poverty who are dependent on public distribution programmes.”

Twelve years after a global campaign successfully advocated the cancellation of some of the world’s poorest countries’ public debt, developing economies are again facing unsustainable debt burdens. Only this time, it is the private sector’s debt in developing economies that is inflating dangerously.

Children in Otjivero, Namibia. Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS

A recent report by the Jubilee Debt Campaign, a coalition of organisations supporting debt relief and increased transparency in global financial markets, highlights that foreign debt payments of the private sector in impoverished countries have increased from four percent of export earnings in 2000, to 10 percent on average in 2010.

“Some countries like Ethiopia, Niger or Mozambique continue to spend as much on debt service as before the rounds of debt cancellation in 2000,” Tim Jones, who authored the report, told IPS. The governments of El Salvador, the Philippines and Sri Lanka also continue to spend a quarter of government revenue on foreign debt payments.

Debt payments of the private sector are now double those of the public sector in many of the world’s most fragile economies, the ‘State of Debt’ report argues.

“Generally, public debt has decreased because of debt cancellation or better economic prospects, but the private sector has become dangerously indebted in many developing countries, threatening development achievements,” Jones explained. “Nothing has been done to prevent the build up of large debts in developing countries through a very liberalised global financial system,” he added.

Despite the international community agreeing to cancel up to 125 billion dollars for 33 countries since 2000 under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank predictions foresee foreign debt payments in the least developed countries (LDCs) increasing by one-third over the next few years, the report argues.

The swelling of unsustainable debt, which has afflicted the South since the 1970s, is now causing panic in Europe as well. What is happening in Greece today mirrors what has been happening in the developing world, the Jubilee Debt Campaign argues, observing that history is repeating itself in a world where “lenders can go on lending with impunity and borrowers will always have to pay the price”.

The issue of unsustainable debt came to the world’s attention when Mexico first defaulted in August 1982. Mexico faced another debt crisis in the 1990s, followed by East Asia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina, due to excessive borrowing by the private sector.

The Campaign’s research estimates that “in the 1950s and 1960s, the number of governments defaulting on their debts averaged four every twenty years. Since the 1970s this has risen to four every year.”

“We now have a global financial crisis where people in the Western world are experiencing what many people across the global South have experienced for the last 30 years. It’s amazing how this ideology of liberalisation still holds so much sway,” Jones marveled.

“Some countries have tried to re-regulate international lending in recent years, like Brazil, which imposed a tax on short-term foreign money coming into the country; Iceland as well (whose entire banking system collapsed in 2008, the country’s three largest banks having accrued debt exceeding six times the national GDP) has had a very different response to the global financial crisis: its government refused to take on the banking sector’s foreign debt, largely because the people stood up and refused to do that. Iceland is now recovering far better than other countries from its debt crisis.”

“More countries have been backing regulations on how money flows in and out of their territory, but there are barriers in the system, such as World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements,” Jones added.

Since 2000, 32 developing countries have qualified for debt relief, their debt payments reduced from an average of 20 percent of government revenue in 1998 to less than five percent in 2010, according to the report. In countries qualifying for debt cancellation, primary school enrolment has increased from 63 percent of children to 83 percent in ten years.

The Jubilee Debt Campaign has been advocating the creation of an international debt court able to cancel unsustainable debts, arguing, “Many developing countries have been, and continue to be, locked in a debtor’s prison.”

The increasing burden of debt is also strongly felt in developing countries that did not qualify for the HIPC scheme, such as Kenya.

“There isn’t enough thinking around debt management policies and development outcomes,” Kiama Kaara, who heads the Kenya Debt Relief Network programmes in Nairobi, told IPS.

“Loans and development financing must be tied to the national development agenda, otherwise we will end up with more useless, ‘white elephant’ projects that drain national resources,” he added.

Kenya’s public debt increased from 46.8 percent of GDP to 48.9 percent today, according to the Network.

“Borrowing makes economic sense, but the level of prudence should increase,” Kaara explained. “This is particularly worrying in countries where the political elite is the same as the economic elite; the appetite for increasing domestic debt benefits banks controlled by influential players, who profit from the private sector’s debt despite the obvious conflict of interest.”

At a national level, civil society is increasingly mobilising to have a stronger say on the level of debt incurred by governments. The Kenya Debt Relief Network has been drafting a ‘Responsible Borrowing Charter’ to gauge loans against the country’s macroeconomic indicators.

“The IMF has been seeking to create a new mandate on how to regulate the movements of money between countries, but it is still very weak,” Jones told IPS. “We are making the same mistake with the European debt crisis as with the Latin American debt crisis in the past, by thinking austerity is the answer, and it just creates further decline in the economy and suffering for the people on the ground.”

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Family planning in the LDCs is crucial to lowering birth rates, reducing poverty and protecting vulnerable populations against climate change. Credit: SERP/IPS

By Julio Godoy
PARIS, May 30 2012 (IPS)

The reproductive rights agenda, from improving women’s access to education to systematic family planning to reducing birth rates and combating poverty, has become a cornerstone of most industrialised nations’ development policies toward the least developed countries (LDCs), comprised primarily of sub-Saharan African states.

This sharpening of focus comes just in time for the Rio+ 20 summit on sustainable development, slated to run from Jun. 20-22 in Brazil, where the question of climate change will be discussed alongside the development agenda.

It is no surprise that LDCs with the lowest gross national income per capita, weakest human resources and highest economic vulnerability are also the most affected by climate change.

This double challenge, of mitigating climate change and combating crushing poverty, makes improving reproductive rights and promoting gender equality goals that can no longer be delayed, according to several recent reports and agreements.

During a meeting of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – U.N. Women – with the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), which took place in Paris this week, delegates agreed to put the empowerment of women and reproductive rights at the centre of their joint action.

The agreement, signed by Michelle Bachelet, executive director of U.N. Women, and Abdou Diouf, secretary general of the OIF, aims at tackling gender inequality in the 75 OIF member states, most of which are also LDCs.

Gender inequality, typified by violence and discrimination against women, also leads to higher birth rates and poverty, according to experts.

The agreement between U.N. Women and the OIF is but one of several other covenants launched in recent weeks, in the hopes of improving women’s access to education and promoting reproductive rights and family planning.

Last April, U.N. Women set up another agreement with the European Union to strengthen cooperation between the two organisations in their work on gender equality.

Simultaneously, the Royal Society of London (RS) released its new People and the Planet report, which focuses on reproductive rights and social justice as cornerstones of global economic sustainability.

The report called attention to LDCs’ urgent need to “improve women’s access to education and family planning if they are to achieve sustainable development”.

The report recalled that even though global population growth is slowing, rates in LDCs — particularly in sub-Saharan African countries — are expected to remain high for the rest of the century, hampering efforts to reduce poverty.

On the other hand, the report deplored disproportionately high consumption levels in industrialised countries, the root cause of global warming and climate change.

British biologist John Sulston, co-author of the report, said that “population growth and high consumption must be considered together” while searching for solutions to climate change.

Sulston, who headed a working group at the RS while preparing the newest People and the Planet report, said that family planning is indispensable in countries with the highest fertility rate, mostly LDCs.

He also pointed out that populations in industrialised countries, which consume resources at a rate that the planet cannot afford, must realise that their way of life is not sustainable.

The report is extremely timely, coming just ahead of the Rio + 20 summit, which is poised to deal with sustainable development and the planet’s future.

The report stressed the world must meet the challenge of lifting “the 1.3 billion people living on less than 1.25 dollars per day” out of absolute poverty.

To fulfil this objective, international inequality must be eliminated, a process that “will require focused efforts in key policy areas including economic development, education, family planning and health.”

The report also emphasised that “the most developed and the emerging economies must stabilise and then reduce material consumption levels through … improvements in resource-use efficiency, including reducing waste; investment in sustainable resources, technologies and infrastructures; and systematically decoupling economic activity from environmental impact.”

Sulston told IPS, “An enormous injustice affects the human world, as expressed by extremely high consumption in some areas, a consumption of food for instance, that is unhealthy for the very people consuming (the foodstuffs), while other people (in LDCs) consume too little, and suffer malnutrition, diseases and even death due to poverty.”

Sulston lamented, “Humanity is the victim of a system of global economics based on an (inadequate) measurement of gross domestic product (GDP), which drives consumption, and pushes people to compete against each other.”

“The one thing that governments all over the world say is: we must grow, we must grow, more than the others,” Sulston said.

To actually measure human development, “We must add the cost of the Earth, the price of its resources, into our economic models, in order to have a more stable socio-economic structure, not only for the present, but also for the wellbeing of humans in the future,” he said.

Sulston added that climate change is making clear that humanity “is running out of space.” Evidence of climate change and of social injustice fuels the crucial need “to put all these issues – population growth, human consumption and environment – on top of the agenda of the forthcoming Rio + 20 summit.”

Eliya Msiyaphazi Zulu, executive director of the African Institute for Development Policy and president of the Union for African Population Studies, recalled that there is a well-established link between low education levels and high birthrates.

Education delays the onset of childbirth, but also empowers women, “because once you’re more educated, you can have more autonomy, more say in decision making processes in your marriage,” Zulu said.

The report notes that educated women are also more likely to seek out healthcare for their children and get jobs, thereby contributing to their economies. Consequently, instead of waiting for development to slow population growth, Zulu said, countries should focus on reducing fertility rates to promote development.

(END)