A new approach is necessary if the world’s most poverty-stricken countries are to escape their predicament, speakers said this afternoon in opening a two-day UNCTAD meeting of experts, which aims to spur ideas for 2011 conference on Least Developed Countries. UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said experience has shown that outside efforts to help LDCs must focus more on enabling them to diversify their economies — to be less dependent on raw materials or agricultural commodities, ”on copper, on cocoa, on coffee.” Enhancing such economies’ ”productive capacities” offers hope that these nations can make steady progress and be less vulnerable to external shocks, such as the global recession and the natural disasters that recently struck Haiti and Samoa, Mr. Supachai said. ”Some countries had been successful in diversifying their economies, in creating jobs, in improving governance,” Mr. Supachai said. ”We should be able to learn from lessons past so that things will be better in the future.” He added: ”We should be looking at ways of making LDC status a temporary status.”
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