A country is dependent on the export of commodities (or “commodity-dependent”) when its merchandise exports are heavily concentrated on primary commodities.
The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) was proposed in 1964 at the first quadrennial conference of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which has a lengthy association with trade preferences as a tool of development.
The ocean economy is worth between $3 trillion and $6 trillion and offers vast opportunities for developing countries to build resilience. But marine resources are under threat from climate change, pollution and overfishing. About 11 million tonnes of plastic flow into the ocean each year.
The least developed countries (LDCs) are at a decisive stage in their economic development. Climate change requires that they pursue sustained economic growth while balancing needed climate actions against inescapable trade-offs with sustainable development.
With plastic pollution becoming a global crisis over the past few years, finding material alternatives and substitutes to plastic material has gained urgency. However, it is crucial to carefully consider the socio-environmental consequences of plastic substitutes.
The United Nations Trade and Development Conference (UNCTAD) in its latest Trade and Development Report Update warns that developing countries are facing years of difficulty as the global economy slows down amid heightened financial turbulence.
This UNCTAD SDG Pulse comes at a crucial moment in the history of both multilateralism and trade and development. Since 2020, the world has been in a constant state of cascading crises that overlap and compound each other.
Access to energy is defined in many ways, but most definitions include having reliable and affordable access to both cooking facilities and electricity that can be scaled up over time. Access to a reliable and quality energy supply is vital to the economic development of any country (Bhatia and Angelou, 2015).
Green technologies – those used to produce goods and services with smaller carbon footprints – are growing and providing increasing economic opportunities but many developing countries could miss them unless national governments and the international community take decisive action.
