Smooth Transition for Countries Graduating From the List of Least Developed Countries

Urges graduating countries and all bilateral and multilateral development and trading partners to pursue or intensify their efforts, consistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization, to contribute to the full implementation of resolution 59/209, as appropriate, with a view to ensuring the smooth transition of graduating least developed countries;

Requests the Secretary-General to further enhance information-sharing and understanding of available least developed country-specific international support measures, their characteristics and modalities, commends in this regard the existence of the Support Measures Portal for Least Developed Countries, which was developed by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat as a valuable comprehensive tool for online information-sharing, and encourages its continuous updating and improvement;

Recommends that the consultative mechanism specified in resolution 59/209 be established by the graduating country, in cooperation with its bilateral and multilateral development and trading partners, to facilitate the preparation of the transition strategy and the identification of the associated actions and the negotiation of their duration and phasing out for a period appropriate to the development situation of the country, and that it be integrated with other relevant consultative processes and initiatives between the graduating country and its development partners;

Invites graduating and graduated countries to implement the smooth transition strategy as part of their overall development strategy and to incorporate it into relevant documents, including the poverty reduction strategy papers and the action matrix of the Diagnostic Trade Integration Studies under the Enhanced Integrated Framework for Trade-Related Technical Assistance to Least Developed Countries;

Requests the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, as Chair of the United Nations Development Group, to provide, if requested, the support of the Resident Coordinator as a facilitator of the consultative process, and to assist graduating countries in the preparation of their transition strategies;

Requests the entities of the United Nations system to provide targeted assistance, including capacity-building, to graduating countries, if requested, through the United Nations country teams, in line with the existing mandates and resources, in support of the formulation and implementation of the national transition strategy;

Invites United Nations entities that have committed to allocating a certain percentage of their resources to least developed countries to consider the extension and gradual phasing out of least developed country-specific support to graduated countries for a fixed period of time in a predictable manner and applied according to the specific development situation of each graduating country;

Invites development and trading partners to consider the inclusion of trade-related technical assistance as part of the commitments to support each country’s transition strategy in order to help graduating countries to adjust to the phasing out of trade preferences, including through the Enhanced Integrated Framework, Aid for Trade or other instruments;

Invites trading partners that have not established procedures for extending or phasing out preferential market access, inter alia, duty-free and quota-free treatment, to clarify in a predictable manner, as a general measure or at the consultative mechanism, their position with regard to the extension of the least developed country-specific preferences, the number of years of the extension or the details concerning the gradual phasing out of the measures;

Invites least developed country-specific funds of the United Nations system to continue providing technical assistance to graduated countries in a manner that phases out over a limited period of time, and as appropriate to the development situation of the country, from within existing resources;

Encourages organizations of the United Nations system to extend voluntary travel benefits to graduated countries for a period appropriate to the development situation of the country from within existing resources and for a maximum of three years from the date of graduation;

Invites the Governments of graduating countries, with the support of the consultative mechanism, to report annually to the Committee for Development Policy on the preparation of the transition strategy and, after graduation becomes effective, to provide concise annual reports on the implementation of the smooth transition strategy for a period of three years, and triennially thereafter, as a complement to the two triennial reviews of the list of least developed countries carried out by the Committee;

Requests the Committee for Development Policy to monitor the development progress of graduated countries, in consultation with the Governments of those countries, on a yearly basis for a period of three years after graduation becomes effective, and triennially thereafter, as a complement to two triennial reviews of the list of least developed countries, and to include its findings in its annual report to the Economic and Social Council;

Encourages least developed countries to interact with graduated countries in order to obtain information on and discuss their experiences and share lessons learned in the context of graduation with support from the Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States;

Invites development partners to consider least developed country indicators, gross national income per capita, the human assets index and the economic vulnerability index as part of their criteria for allocating official development assistance;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventieth session a progress report on the implementation, the effectiveness and the added value of smooth transition measures, including initiatives taken by the United Nations system to support countries during their graduation from the least developed country category.