The world is facing multiple crises of climate change, growing human conflicts, geoeconomic fragmentation and a cost-of-living crunch, all of which weigh heavily on least developed countries (LDCs) as they try to relaunch their economies in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The impacts of these crises have led to a reversal of years of growth and development progress in LDCs, including in key areas of the Sustainable Development Goals, such as poverty eradication, nutrition, health, education and gender equality.

LDCs as a group experienced a sharp slowdown in economic growth in 2020 and 2021. In 2023, their combined gross domestic product (GDP) was 10 per cent lower than the level it would have reached if the pre-pandemic (2010–2019) growth trend had been sustained. GDP per capita would have been 16 per cent higher in 2023 than current estimates if growth had reached the 7 per cent target set in LDC programmes of action. As a consequence of the economic slowdown, the total number of extremely poor in the LDCs is estimated to have risen, with at least 15-million more people living in extreme poverty than prior to the pandemic.

Report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development