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Meeting on landlocked countries adds to development initiatives, UN official says

Meeting on landlocked countries adds to development initiatives, UN official says

A senior United Nations official today pledged to take the outcomes of a high-level three-day conference on the problems of landlocked developing countries to an African ministerial meeting, as well as to the UN summit on development in September as a contribution to forging global partnerships.

"I will bring the outcome of this meeting to the Conference of African Ministers for Transport and Infrastructure in Addis Ababa next week. The issues that were raised here would be of relevance to the African Meeting, particularly the one relating to indicators to measure progress," said the UN High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, Anwarul K. Chowdhury.

"The outcome of this meeting represents a major contribution towards implementing Goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals," he added, referring to the eight goals agreed in 2000 to reduce the socioeconomic problems in developing countries.

Goal 8 calls on UN Member States to "develop a global partnership for development."

The High-Level Meeting in Kazakhstan, which ended today, discussed the role of multilateral organizations in implementing the Almaty Programme of Action (APoA) to secure access to the sea for landlocked countries and reduce their trade transaction costs.

The concluding communiqué asked Mr. Chowdhury to help with the coordination of initiatives, including a technical cooperation programme involving several major multilateral institutions.

It said countries would tackle their problems by establishing efficient transit and transport systems and finding ways of measuring that progress. They would continue to extend technical assistance to landlocked developing countries and develop criteria for financing, taking into account the benefits derived from projects based on poverty alleviation, rather than commercial considerations.

It also called for an annual review of progress made and lessons learned.