Financing for Development in the Least Developed Countries - Needs, challenges and the Doha Programme of Action - Global Policy Forum

The first part of the report looks at the development financing needs of LDCs. We summarize existing estimates of SDG financing needs for the LDCs. At the time of writing, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has been a major setback for LDCs’ development progress, causing additional financing needs and impacting on different sources of finance for development. While it is too early to quantify the damage, we describe LDCs’ expectations towards international support in the area of development finance. We also look at LDCs’ position in the institutions of the international financial architecture that govern and regulate global finance. Last but not least, we share positions that different stakeholders expressed. The second and main part of the report looks more specifically into the different financial sources that can be mobilized or channelled to support development objectives in LDCs. Following an analysis of the state of play in the different areas, we analyse and assess the major agreements made in the Doha Programme of Action, both in light of LDCs’ financing needs and in light of the positions that different stakeholders took in the negotiations leading up to the Doha conference.