(www.MaritimeCyprus.com) The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established six decades ago in 1964. UNCTAD helps developing countries participate more equitably in the global economy.
The year 2023 presented a complex landscape of global challenges, testing our resilience while revealing new opportunities for cooperation. Though some economies seem to have navigated a ‘soft landing’, many developing countries continue to suffer disproportionately. Weak growth, investment and trade, wars, growing debt burdens and the ongoing climate crisis continue to underscore the need to fight complacency and bring about transformative change.
Throughout this turbulence, UNCTAD has not only remained steadfast but has pushed on, adapting to meet evolving needs. In these pivotal times, we have increased and updated our technical cooperation toolkit, shed light on emerging global trends through world-class research, and bolstered our capacity to build consensus.
In 2023, we released over 146 reports, including our seven flagships1. These explored complex issues ranging from a “Blue Deal” to safeguard ocean resources, to updating the financing gap for the Sustainable Development Goals in the developing world; from Africa’s critical minerals potential for structural transformation, to measuring trade geopolitics; from providing timely, ahead-of-the-curve data for negotiations in the Black Sea, to uncovering the mounting debt crisis in the Global South. Likewise, the yearly report by UNCTAD on its assistance to the Palestinian people, submitted pursuant to United Nations General Assembly resolution 77/22, was delivered at the end of 2023. The report sheds light on the very precarious situation in which the Palestinian people were living, even before the current conflict and humanitarian crisis started.
At the same time, reforms undertaken in 2022 to strengthen UNCTAD statistical capacity
began to bear fruit last year, with important outputs delivered on areas such as Beyond GDP, SDG costing exercises at the national level, and measuring synergies within SDG transition pathways. At the same time, we are reinforcing our role as United Nations custodians on measuring and analysing South–South cooperation.
An initiative to bring a holistic strategy for small island developing states was agreed
with relevant stakeholders, to be presented in 2024. The inter-divisional gender working
group created in 2022 began to convene expert level consultations with policymakers and
academics studying trade and development from a gender perspective, with the view of
developing a stronger gender and trade analysis.
Read more in the full UNCTAD 2023 Annual report, below:
Source: UN
