May 2011
The Least Developed Countries: Biggest
Challenges, Least Assistance?
Background Brief for UN LDC-IV Conference on Aid and MDGs, Istanbul
The Least Developed Countries face some of the biggest challenges to meeting
the Millennium Development Goals: inadequate social services, weak
governance, limited revenue bases and volatile economic growth. Recognising
these challenges, the Brussels Declaration and Programme of Action (BPoA) was
adopted in 2001 at the Third United Nations Conference on Least Developed
Countries. Notwithstanding some progress towards achieving the thirty-six goals
and sixty-three indicators set out in the framework of the BPoA, persistent
economic and social challenges remain in many of the least developed countries.
International aid, on which LDCs are highly dependent, has been insufficient to
help LDCs address these challenges and all too frequently the quality of the aid
received has been poor. This is an agenda that is doubly important at a time
when the aid budgets of many bilateral donors are being squeezed, and many
LDCs are struggling to cope with the aftershocks of the global economic crisis.
Key Points:
 Although a majority of people below the income poverty line of $1.25 a day now
live in Middle-Income Countries (MICs), poverty in Least Developed Countries is
deeper and more pervasive, and they continue to shoulder much larger human
development deficits in health, education and other key sectors.
 LDCs account for 12% of the world’s people, but one quarter of income poverty,
and 40% of children dying before the age of five.
 Although aid to LDCs has risen, it falls well short of the targets agreed upon in
the Brussels Declaration and Programme of Action for the Least Developed
Countries in 2001. Moreover, aid allocations are often not being driven by need
and the ability to use aid well.
 LDCs are not getting a fair share of aid across sectors, relative to other
developing countries. Some sectors – such as health and agriculture – have seen
an increase in aid allocations, but this rise is accounted for by increasing
allocations to just 5 countries. Meanwhile aid for LDCs in other sectors such as
water and education have seen cut backs.
 LDCs are a mix of both ‘aid darlings’, such as Afghanistan, and ‘aid orphans’,
such as Niger.
 Improvements in the quality of aid to LDCs have been slow, and therefore so has
its cost-effectiveness in producing development results. For example, aid
continues to be highly volatile and unpredictable. Only two-thirds of aid to LDCs
1
is disbursed in the intended year and in the case of the Democratic Republic of
Congo, this can be as low as 20 percent.
1) Introduction
Recent poverty analysis has showed that the majority of the world’s poor no longer live in Low
Income Countries (LICs), but in middle-income countries (MICs)i. In 1990, it was estimated that
93 per cent of the world's poor people lived in LICs. In contrast, in 2007, three-quarters of the
world's approximately 1.3bn poor people lived in MICs, and only about a quarter of the world's
poor (370 million people) in 39 low-income countries.ii There is a risk that this change in the
global distribution of poverty leads to LICS and Least Developed Countriesiii - a UN
classification which incorporates the majority of the LICs and other countries with major
development challenges – being sidelined in global poverty reduction efforts, as the focus shifts
towards MICs. Save the Children believes that the LDCs – which tend to shoulder a
disproportionate burden of poverty and unmet need in health and education, and which are
usually heavily aid-dependent – require ongoing support and attention from the international
community. As the UN LDC Conference in Istanbul takes place, the donor countries need to
increase and improve their aid to LDCs, as part of a wider development strategy to support
growth and poverty reduction in the world’s poorest countries.
In the late 1960’s, the United Nations began paying special attention to the LDCs, recognizing
those countries as the most vulnerable among the international communityiv. There have been
51 LDCs since the UN created the category in 1970. To date, only three have graduated from
this status – Botswana in 1994, Cape Verde in 2007, and Maldives earlier in 2011. This, in
itself, is a reminder that LDCs continue to be trapped in a cycle of poverty and limited economic
development. Substantial progress is urgently required to meet the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) of halving poverty by 2015 and promoting sustainable development. The
success of the MDGs will depend, to a significant degree, on the success of the LDCs in
reducing poverty and boosting their economic performance.
The unique structural and governance challenges facing LDCs negatively impact the sources of
revenue at their disposal, as they struggle to raise domestic taxation and attract foreign direct
investment. Official development assistance provides a significant share of public spending in
many LDCs. However, this paper shows that LDCs are not getting the quantity or the quality of
aid they need to address their development challenges.
In this paper we estimate the relative burden of poverty and the human development deficit
faced by the LDCs, compared with Middle Income Countries and with Conflict Affected and
Fragile States (CAFs). We show that aid to LDCs is not commensurate with the share of
development need, and tends to be lower quality than the aid given to other developing
countries.
In the sections that follow, where we present data on poverty and human development, two
sets of graphs are shown. In each case, the first graph contrasts the LDC burden to the total
MIC and CAF burden. The second graph excludes India and China from the MICs category.
We do this because India and China taken together constitute more than one-third of the world
population, and therefore tend to skew comparative national statistics.
2) Least developed countries bear a burden of poverty, relative to middle-income
countries
The first target of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the incidence of income
poverty by half between 1990 and 2015. However, the LDCs as a group are unlikely to reach
this goal, despite moderate improvements over the last decadev. The LDCs bear a high burden
2
in terms of the number of poor people and the depth of their poverty, compared to other
developing countries. With a combined population of 835 million peoplevi, LDCs account for
12% of the world’s people but 24% of global poverty (calculated at $1.25 per day). Conflict
Affected and Fragile States account for 21% and MICs for 55% (73% of poverty in MICs is
accounted for by India and China). But at 46%, the poverty incidence in LDCs is far higher than
for other categories of country. Poverty is deeper, as well as more widespread in LDCs than in
other developing countries: the depth of poverty at $1.25 per day is averagedvii at a much
higher rate for LDCs, at 19 percent, compared with 17 percent for CAF countries and a
significantly lower average, of 3 percent, for MICs (even when including India and China in the
calculation).
Graph 1: Share of Poverty
Source: Calculated from the World Bank’s latest WDI poverty prevalence figures available for countries
and the World Bank’s Data Catalogue for population figures. viii
3) Least developed countries suffer higher human development deficits, relative to
middle-income countries
At the UN Millennium Summit in 2010, the international community took stock of progress
towards the Millennium Development Goals. The LDCs were found to be lagging behind on
such critical indicators as hunger, child and maternal mortality, primary education and access to
water and sanitation.ix
Child and maternal mortality
Of all the MDG goals, child and maternal mortality (MDG Goals 4 and 5 respectively) remain
among the furthest off track, despite the increased focus of the international community in
recent years. While considerable progress has been achieved on MDG 4, under-five mortality
remains very high, with over 8 million children dying of preventable causes every year. The rate
of reduction at 28 percent since the baseline year of 1990 is well below the 67 percent
reduction required to meet the goal – progress must increase fourfold to reach the MDG by the
target date of 2015x. In 2009, Middle Income Countries (excluding India and China)xi accounted
for 12 percent of global child mortality, while LDC countries accounted for 39 percent of the
global total. Together, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Afghanistan account for
1.1 million child deaths a yearxii (Graph 02).
A child’s survival is intimately connected to the health and wellbeing of his or her mother; a
strong example of this comes from Afghanistan, where 75 percent of infants who survive
maternal death die within their first year of life.xiii According to the State of the World’s Children
3
Report (2009) the divide between industrialized countries and the least developed countries is
greater in maternal mortality than on almost any other issuexiv. This divide was reflected in the
2009 LDC share of global maternal deaths (Graph 03) calculated at 35 percent compared to
the MIC share of 24 percent. The divide becomes even starker, when India and China are
excluded such that the LDC burden of maternal mortality was 41 percent as compared to an 11
percent burden share for MICs.
Hunger and nutrition
The MDG commitment to halve the incidence of hunger shows a similar pattern. One of the
indicators by which progress on this goal is measured is the prevalence of underweight in
children under five. The most common cause for a child being underweight is malnutrition or
under nutrition; this is easily calculated by height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-age
(underweight) data for children under five. Despite an overall improvement in nutrition status of
children, least developed and conflict affected countries continue to bear a disproportionately
high number of stunted and wasted children, as indicated by Graph 04. Poverty, low levels of
education, barriers to the access of health care services and a lack of food security all
contribute to childhood under nutrition in LDCs.
Education
More than a decade has passed since the international community adopted the six ‘Education
for All’ goalsxv in Dakar and the MDG target of achieving universal primary education by 2015.
Despite these international efforts, more than 20 percent of children of primary school age in
LDCs were still excluded from education in 2008.xvi In 2006 (the most recent available data)
only 6 percent of the population aged 20-24 in LDCs was enrolled in tertiary education,
compared with 23 percent in other developing countries.xvii Contrasting literacy data across
LDCs, MICs and CAFs for youth (aged 15-24) also shows poor educational progress in LDCs;
MICs had the largest proportion of literate youth at 55 percent, compared with only 20 percent
in MICs.xviii (Graph 05).
Water and sanitation
MDG 7, Target 10, outlines the global ambition to halve the proportion of people without access
to water and sanitation by 2015. LDCs still face acute problems related to water supply. They
often lack the necessary technology and investment required to collect, treat and distribute
water. Much of this problem stems from of weak governance and poor infrastructure which
prevents the regulation of and control over water flows. Over 500 million people in LDCs still
lack access to sanitation and over 300 million have no access to clean waterxix.
Graph 02: Share of Under-five Mortality
Source: Calculated from UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2008 under-5 death figures available
4
for countries
Graph 03: Share of Maternal Mortality
Source: Calculated from the 2008 maternal death data available in WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and WB
publication ‘Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2008’
Graph 04: Under-nutrition
Undernutrition
Undernutrition
120000
80000
N o . o f ch ild r e n
N o. of ch ild r e n
100000
80000
60000
40000
60000
40000
20000
20000
0
0
LDC
CAF
MIC (excl. India &
China)
LDC
CAF
MIC
Stunting
57076
65174
100550
Stunting
57076
65174
30083
Underweight
37538
40869
70156
Underweight
37538
40869
11544
Source: Calculated from the World Bank’s latest WDI malnutrition (height for age and weight for age)
prevalence figures available for countries and World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision.xx
5
Graph 05: Share of Literacy
Source: Calculated from the World Bank’s latest WDI youth literacy rates available for countries and World
Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision.xxi
4) Aid Flows Are Not Responding to LDC Needs
4.1. Aid to LDCs has risen sharply, but must increase by at least 50% to meet targets
A combination of poverty and unmet need, and limited domestic sources of revenue mean that
many LDCs are heavily dependent on international aid.
In the aggregate, LDCs appear to have benefited from an increase in aid flows since 2000 –
over the last decade donor aid to LDCs had almost trebled, rising from US$13.8 billion to
US$37.3 billion. The share of LDCs in total global aid had also risen, by 5 percentage points to
31 percentxxii. However, most of this increase reflects large rises in aid to Afghanistan, just as
two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq) explain most of the 7 percent rise in aid to post-or inconflict countries since 2003.
DAC aid to LDCs also rose as a proportion of donors’ national income (GNI), from 0.06 percent
to almost 0.1 percent of GNI. But this remains well below the target in the Brussels Programme
of Action of 0.15-0.2 percent. By 2009, only 7 donors (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg,
Netherlands, Norway and Sweden) had reached 0.2 percent, and only two more (Finland and
the UK) 0.15 percent. To reach 0.15 percent overall, DAC donors would need to increase aid to
LDCs by 50 percent; to reach 0.2 percent they would need to double itxxiii.
4.2. LDCs are not getting A Fair Share of Aid across Sectors
Looking at key sectors (Graph 07), since 2002 the share of aid going to LDCs has risen sharply
in agriculture (26.6 percent to 38.8 percent) and health (28.9 percent to 38.9 percent), at the
expense of middle-income countries. A closer look at Table 01 however, shows that while ODA
in the health sector to LDCs has increased, 45 percent of this total goes to only 5 LDCs –
Ethiopia, Congo DR, Tanzania, Afghanistan and Mozambique. Therefore, whilst the overall
picture is one of increasing aid to these sectors, only a small number of countries stand to
benefit.
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Graph 06: Total ODA (excluding debt relief) by Country Grouping
Source: OECD (aggregated aid statistics)
Graph 07: Share of LDCs in DAC Sectoral ODA
Source – OECD (credit report system)
7
The LDC share of aid to water and sanitation has stagnated at around 30 percent, while aid to
education has fallen from 33.1 percent to only 28.6 percent. From 2002 to 2006, the LDC share
of aid to water and sanitation was disproportionately lower than that received by MICs such as
Malaysia, Indonesia and China. Malaysia received an average $500 in aid for every person
without access to water. Madagascar, eighty places behind Malaysia on the Human
Development Index, received less than $2 per un-served personxxiv.
5) Aid levels among LDCs vary widely
Some LDCs receive far more aid than others. The disparity between aid ‘darlings’ and ‘orphans’
reflects a range of factors, including the willingness and ability of recipients to use aid well (or
donor perceptions of this), geopolitical and strategic links, trade and investment interests, and
cultural ties. Table 01 shows that the top five LDCs currently receive almost half of total aid to
LDCs. This concentration in a few countries has been growing since 2005, as increasing
amounts of aid have gone to Afghanistan.
Aid concentration is reflected at sector levelxxv. 54 percent of aid to agriculture in LDCs went to
only 5 countries (35 percent to Ethiopia and Afghanistan alone). Five countries received 45
percent of total aid to health among LDCs, 40 percent of aid to education and 38 percent of aid
to water and sanitation.
Table 01: ODA disbursements to the top 5 LDCs (by sector and total), 2009
Sector
Top 5 LDC programme country recipients
Agriculture, forestry Ethiopia (18.2%), Afghanistan (17.8%), Tanzania (7.3%), Mali
and fisheries
(5.6%), Uganda (5%)
Education
Health
Water supply and
sanitation
Overall ODA
Ethiopia (15.5%), Afghanistan (7.9%), Bangladesh (6.2%),
Mozambique (5.4%), Nepal (4.96%)
Ethiopia (14.4%), Congo DR (8.7%), Tanzania (8.6%),
Afghanistan (7.1%), Mozambique (6.1%)
Tanzania (10.7%), Ethiopia (8.8%), Haiti (7.6%), Mozambique
(5.9%), Uganda (5.3%)
Afghanistan (15.8%), Ethiopia (9.7%), Tanzania (7.4%),
Sudan (5.8%), Congo DR (5.6%)
Top 5 total share
Median %
share
Amounts
disbursed
2009 (US$
billion)
53.9%
0.91
2.64
40%
1.09
2.88
44.90%
0.64
3.10
38.30%
0.40
1.32
44.30%
1.11
394.02
Source: UNDCF 2011
This concentration does not reflect population size. According to the World Bank, ODA per
capita varies from US$433 for Samoa to only US$7 for Bangladesh and Myanmar. With the
exception of Afghanistan, the top 10 aid recipients per capita are countries with small
populations.
LDCs’ can be grouped into 6 clusters depending on their MDG status and progressxxvi. Aid to
the 14 countries with the lowest status and progressxxvii has risen faster than most other clusters
over the last five years. Donors’ forward spending plans indicate that aid to these countries will
rise by only 0.2 percent over 2010-12, much less than other clusters. Indeed, 8 of the countries
most in need (Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Chad, Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
Somalia and Timor Leste) should expect falling aid levels – although in the case of Afghanistan
especially this is from a relatively high initial level. Donors are increasingly moving to reward
countries which have already made progress, but in doing so risk abandoning many countries
with the large unmet needs.
8
6) Aid to LDCs is Poor Quality
The quality of aid to LDCs is often below average. This matters both because poor quality aid
imposes higher transaction costs on recipients in terms of coordination, planning and reporting,
and because this has knock-on effects on the cost-effectiveness in terms of the results it
produces:
1. Programmable Aid: According to the OECD measure of whether aid is predictable and
gets spent in the recipient country – known as country programmable aid (CPA)xxviii - 86
percent of aid to LDCs is programmable. However, this falls below 50 percent for the
bottom 10 aid recipients, and around 25 percent for Burundi, Central African Republic and
Somalia. For these LDCs, less than half the aid they received can be spent on any
development programmes, including delivering results in the health and education sectors.
In addition, US$2.2 billion of money reported as aid is actually spent on scholarships for
developing country students to study in OECD countries (most of which go to middleincome countries).xxix
NIGER: AN LDC “AID ORPHAN”
Niger is a good example of an LDC “aid orphan”. It was among the first countries in the world to design
its own poverty reduction strategy in 1997. It was also among the first to design its own comprehensive
education and health sector plans, showing strong national leadership on poverty reduction. According to
the Paris Declaration surveyxxx, it had a moderately good but improving development strategy, a
moderately strong public financial management system, and a strong procurement system, though its
results management was weak.
Nevertheless, it has received very little aid: in 2009, donors gave US$31 for each Nigerien citizen, while
it was ranked 8th from bottom of the LDC list. In addition, over the last five years its Country
Programmable Aid (CPA) has grown by only 1 percent. It also has very few donors. France, Japan,
Denmark and Germany are the major donor governments, with another 4 governments giving relatively
small amounts limited to 1-2 sectors. IDA, EU, ADB and the UN dominate multilateral aid flows, with 3
other agencies playing a marginal role. As a result, in key sectors such as infrastructure and water, Niger
has only 2-3 donors, making development results highly vulnerable to volatile decisions by individual
donors.
xxxi
Niger also suffers from very poor quality aid. The Paris Declaration survey indicated no general budget
support and less than 20 percent sector budget support (for education and health). Only 26 percent of
aid uses government financial management systems and only 37 percent uses government procurement
systems. Donors conducted only 18 percent of donor missions and 32 percent of analysis jointly.
According to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Capacity Building Programme, compared to other
HIPC LDCs, Niger receives more off-budget aid, lower-quality technical assistance, and little information
from donors on their future plans; and faces more policy and procedural conditions. Niger has no
functioning system for holding government and its donors mutually accountable for the results of aid.
Partly as a result of these shortfalls, Niger is off-track on meeting MDGs 1 (poverty), 2 (universal primary
education), 3 (gender equality and empowerment), 5 (maternal health) and 7 (environmental
sustainability). It remains one of the countries furthest from reaching the millennium targets.
Recently, this problem has been exacerbated by political instability, culminating in a military coup in
February 2010. This resulted in a slowing and then suspension of aid commitments and disbursements.
Yet in April 2011, Niger has elected a new civilian government committed to using aid funds well. In spite
of the evidence that it needs more and better quality aid, donors were intending as of end-2009 to reduce
their aid to Niger by 0.5 percent over the next 3 years. This intention needs to be reversed for Niger to
have any hope of meeting the MDGs.
9
2. Budget Support:xxxii Disbursing aid as budget support to LDCs is the best way to promote
LDC leadership of national development plans, by allowing governments to allocate aid in
ways that strengthens their national systems, and encouraging parliaments and citizens to
hold their governments to account. However, though the amount of budget support
disbursed to LDCs has doubled since 2001, it has fallen from 12 percent to 9 percent of aid
disbursements to LDCs. Countries in- or post-conflict usually receive virtually no budget
support for several years, regardless of the quality of their development programmes,
because donors find it hard to move away from humanitarian aid and multiple fragmented
projects. Countries like Mozambique, Rwanda and Tanzania which have received general
and sector budget support have made rapid progress towards the health and education
MDGs; it has allowed many others to make basic health and education free for their
citizens.xxxiii Moving to budget support would reduce transaction costs, freeing up an extra
15% of each dollar to increase health and education results, as well as covering the
essential recurring costs like salaries, drugs and textbooks which are vital to further
progress.
3. Use of Countries’ Own Systems: Many LDCs have made dramatic improvements to their
public financial management and procurement systems, sharply reducing the likelihood that
aid will get diverted into corruption. But donors have not significantly improved their use of
LDCs’ own systems, continuing instead to waste large proportions of aid and cause long
delays to the implementation of development programmes, by running their own parallel
systems. This is particularly true in countries which have seen political instability or conflict.
Reducing delays and wastage by using country systems would also increase the value of
aid by around 20%xxxiv, increasing the results for health and education accordingly.
4. Fragmentation or Concentration of Donors? There has been a great deal of focus in
recent years on countries which have “too many” donors, and therefore are burdened by
excessive numbers of projects, missions and other processes. The emphasis in most
countries has been on trying to rationalise the numbers of donors and projects, and to
encourage joint missions and analysis by donors. However, in many LDCs the problem is
the opposite: too few donors. In a recent study of “fragile states”xxxv, the OECD identified
four LDCs (Afghanistan, Liberia, Solomon Islands and Togo), which are dependent on one
donor for at least 50% of aid. Cuts in aid from key donors can undermine progress towards
the MDGs, as Niger saw 2000-2002 when two key donors cut grant funds including to
education.
5. Predictability/Volatility and Conditionality: predictable aid is vital to help LDCs plan and
implement their development programmes and budgets. Aid needs to be predictable, not
just by arriving in the year when it was promised, but also over the medium-term. Only twothirds of aid to LDCs is disbursed in the intended year, and this can be as low as 20% (in
DRCxxxvi): short-term predictability depends mainly on whether donors use budget support
or other coordinated government-led programmes. Over the medium-term, unpredictability
is linked to excessive policy and procedural conditionalities, which delay or disrupt
implementation. In spite of donor pledges to reduce conditionality, there has been little
progress. In a recent analysis, the OECD estimated that higher volatility in 31 LDCs is
reducing the value of aid by 15%.xxxvii The countries worst affected are those with political
instability or conflict, which leads donors to delay or suspend aid and take excessively
lengthy periods to resume support. Burkina Faso, Burundi, CAR, Chad, Mali and Niger
have all experienced sharp fluctuations in aid to health or education, reducing their abilities
10
to deliver sustainable services to their populations and achieve human development
results.xxxviii
7) Recommendations for the forum
Save the Children has identified 5 key recommendations for the international community to
ensure that LDCs have enough high quality aid to meet their unique development challenges
and reach the MDGs;
1) Donors must honour aid pledges: Donor countries should meet target 7 of the
Brussels Programme for Action (allocating 0.15 - 0.2 percent of GNP to LDCs), thereby
doubling annual aid to LDCs, in the context of overall progress towards meeting the
target of giving 0.7% of national income in aid.
2) Aid should be allocated according to poverty and human development needs:
Most donor allocations are only weakly based on a recipient country’s needs.
Allocations of aid should not only be based on evidence displaying the incidence and
depth of poverty. It’s equally important that donors look at human development and
other measures of poverty that encompass the broad spectrum of development
challenges such as maternal and child mortality, under nutrition, access to water and
sanitation.
3) Better sectoral aid allocations: Donors should allocate between sectors according to
need. In particular the LDC share of overall aid to water and sanitation, and education
should rise sharply. Agriculture and health allocations should continue to rise to around
50 percent of total aid to these sectors. The share of sectoral or general budget support
should also increase to at least 30 percent in each LDC.
4) Improve donor coordination: Poor donor coordination and monitoring at the global
level has resulted in a failure to target aid at the poorest countries. This requires better
donor coordination and accountability. Donors should also ensure that a more even
allocation of aid by reallocating from “over-fragmented” to “over-concentrated” countries
and sectors.
5) Increase aid predictability: donors should increase the predictability of aid by reducing
policy conditions and providing five-year forecasts of aid flows. This will enable LDCs to
better plan and allocate resources for attainment of the MDGs.
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Annex – list of UN Least Developed Countries
Africa (33)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Angola
Benin
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Djibouti
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Lesotho
Liberia
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mozambique
Niger
Rwanda
São Tomé and Príncipe
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Togo
Uganda
United Republic of Tanzania
Zambia
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Nepal
Samoa
Solomon Islands
Timor-Leste
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
Yemen
Asia (14)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Cambodia
Kiribati
Lao People’s Democratic Republic
Myanmar
Latin America and the Caribbean (1)
1
Haiti
12
This paper is based on analysis conducted by Save the Children UK and Development Finance
International. It was written by Shreya Mitra (independent consultant), Jessica Espey (Save the
Children UK), Matthew Martin (DFI) and Richard Watts (DFI).
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United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), (2010), ‘Towards a New International
Development Architecture for LDCs’, The Least Developed Countries Report 2010, Geneva: UNCTAD
United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (DCF), (2011), ‘Trends in International Financial
Cooperation for LDCs’, Background Study for the 2012 Development Cooperation Forum, room
document at DCF Bamako Symposium, May
13
United Nations Development Cooperation Forum (DCF),(2010), International Development Cooperation
Report, September, accessed at http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/newfunct/pdf/ma_studystatus_and_progress.pdf
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), (2010), ‘The Global Partnership for Development at a
Critical Juncture’, MDG Gap Task Force Report, New York: UNDP
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), ‘UNESCO’s 2010
Contribution to the Report of the United Nations Secretary-General for the 2010 Substantive Session of
the Economic and Social council and for the Sixty-Fifth Session of the General Assembly on the
“Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries for the Decade 20012010”’, New York: UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) (2011), Education for All
Global Monitoring Report 2010, accessed at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leadingthe-international-agenda/efareport/
United Nations General Assembly, (2010), ‘Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals’, Draft resolution referred to the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly
by the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session, New York: UN
WaterAid and Tearfund, (2008), ‘Sanitation and water: Why we need a global framework for action’,
London: WaterAid and Tearfund
World Bank (2011), World Development Indicators [online], Available from:
http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators
World Health Organisation (WHO) (2010), World Health Report, accessed at
http://www.who.int/whr/2010/en/index.html
i
The World Bank classifies countries based on geographic region, income group and lending category. For the
income group, the classifications are: low-income country (LIC), $995 or less; lower middle-income country (LMIC),
$996 - $3,945; upper middle-income country (UMIC), $3,946 - $12,195; and high-income country (HIC), $12,196 or
more.
ii
Sumner, A., (2010), ‘Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-Quarters of the World’s Poor Live in
Middle-Income Countries?’, Working Paper, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.
iii
The UN classifies least developed countries based on three criteria namely 1. A low-income criterion calculated by
GNI per capita; 2. A human capital status criterion based on indicators of health, nutrition, education and adult
literacy and 3. Economic vulnerability criterion involving a composite Economic Vulnerability Index based on
indicators of population size, remoteness, merchandise export concentration, share of agriculture, forestry, fisheries
in GDP, homelessness owing to natural disasters, instability of agricultural production and instability of exports of
goods and services
iv
UN-OHRLLS, 2011
v
UNCTAD, 2010
vi
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2009/en/pdf/EN_SOWP09.pdf
vii
Averages have been calculated based on poverty gap percentages available from World Bank data sets
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GAPS/countries
viii
Note: The number of poor people is estimated using WDI values on percentage of people living on less than $1.25
per day and using latest population data (2009) from the World Bank’s Data Catalogue. Because the values are not
necessarily from the same year, but from the latest available years, these are estimated percentages
ix
UN General Assembly, 2010
x
Save the Children (2010) A Fair Chance At Life, Save the Children UK: London.
xi
Under-five mortality has been particularly problematic for India displaying the highest record of under-5 deaths in
2009 at 1726 deaths. Some of the reasons for India’s high child mortality rates include gender discrimination, poor
governance, widespread prevalence of disease (pneumonia, diarrhea, AIDS), neonatal deaths
xii
UNICEF, 2011
xiii
Save the Children, (2011 forthcoming), ‘An Equal Start’, Save the children UK: London
xiv
UNICEF, 2009
xv
The six Education for All Goals are early childhood care and education, universal primary education, youth and
adult learning needs, improving levels of adult literacy, assessing gender parity and equality in education and the
quality of education.
xvi
UNESCO, 2010
xvii
UNCTAD, 2006
14
xviii
While youth literacy rate helps assess the effectiveness of country’s basic education system, literacy data does
not differentiate between basic literacy and a higher level of literacy that is required for a better functioning economy.
This maybe one reason why the relative burden share between LDCs and MICs (when excluding India and China) is
not more divergent.
xix
End Water Poverty, 2011
xx
Note: The number of malnourished children is estimated using WDI values on percentage of stunted and wasted
children in the 0-4 year old population and data on population aged 0-4 from the World Population Prospects 2008
revision. Because the values are not necessarily from the same year, but from the latest available year, these are
estimated numbers
xxi
Note: The number of literate youth is estimated using WDI values on percentage of literate youth in the 15-24 year
old population and data on population aged 15-24 years from the World Population Prospects 2008 revision.
Because the values are not necessarily from the same year, but from the latest available years, these are estimated
percentages
xxii
See also UNDCF 2010 and 2011
xxiii
See also LDC-Watch 2011 and UNCTAD 2010
xxiv
Water Aid and Tearfund, 2008
xxv
UNDCF, 2011
xxvi
OECD, 2010
xxvii
Afghanistan, Angola, CAR, Chad, Congo DR, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Niger, Sierra Leone,
Somalia, Timor-Leste, and Yemen.
xxviii
This excludes ODA that is unpredictable (such as debt relief/humanitarian aid), or does not reach the developing
country (costs for hosting refugees, administration costs) (OECD 2009).
xxix
GCE 2010; OECD data for 2009
xxx
OECD, 2008
xxxi
Good quality aid is that bound by and subscribing to the principles set out in the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid
Effectiveness and the subsequent 2008 Accra Agenda for Action.
xxxii
Budget support is a form of aid, which is channeled directly to recipient governments and is linked to sector or
national policies rather than specific project activities. In practice, budget support varies dramatically and is done in a
large range of different ways. One of the broadest distinctions is between general budget support and sector budget
support. General budget support is budget support that is unearmarked for a specific sector of government spending.
Sector budget support is budget support that is earmarked for use in a specific sector or budget line, e.g. health or
education.
xxxiii
Oxfam 2010
xxxiv
Analysis by DFI (forthcoming).
xxxv
OECD 2010b
xxxvi
Analysis by DFI (forthcoming).
xxxvii
OECD (2010b) Ensuring Fragile States Are Not Left Behind, Summary Report and Full Report, November,
accessed at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/12/55/45659170.pdf
xxxviii
UNESCO 2011; WHO 2010.
15