Commissioner Urpilainen to reaffirm EU support to the Least Developed Countries at the 5th UN Conference

Today, 7 March, International Partnerships Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen will be in Doha, Qatar, to participate in the 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC5), which will focus on the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action for the least Developed Countries 2022 – 2031, endorsed last year. The EU remains the largest aid provider to the Least Developed Countries (LDC), having disbursed a total of €28.93 billion for the LDCs over the period 2014-2020. Commissioner Urpilainen will take this occasion to reaffirm the EU's support to the LDCs, especially through the Global Gateway Strategy.

In the morning, she will meet Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and a group of LDCs youth representatives. Commissioner Urpilainen will then deliver the EU statement in the plenary debate and will hold a bilateral meeting with Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of Malawi and Chair of the LDC group. She will then participate in a press briefing that will take place at 10:00am CET.

In the afternoon, Commissioner Urpilainen will meet Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Executive Director of the International Trade Center. She will also sign a number of Global Gateway projects with the European Investment Bank: a project improving access to green electricity and energy in Gambia; a technical assistance project in Guinea-Bissau to connect two key routes vital for the country; and a project of access to clean water in São Tomé e Príncipe. Commissioner Urpilainen will then chair the joint EU and EIB side-event ‘Investing in People's health through Global Gateway'. Later in the afternoon, she will deliver the closing remarks at the UN SDG Action Campaign side-event ‘Flip the Script from Potential to Prosperity and from Apathy to Action: SDG advocacy and campaigning towards the SDG Summit' and will meet Rabab Fatima, High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UNHROLLS). In the course of the day, she will also have a number of bilateral meetings with partner country representatives.

In the evening, Commissioner Urpilainen will attend a working dinner with LDC Ministers hosted by France, in preparation for the Summit for a new global financial pact that will take place on June this year.

Audiovisual material on the mission will be available on EbS.

Share this article: