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Maldives Pushes Revamping of the Smooth Transition Process for LDC Graduation

Maldives has called for the revamping of the Smooth Transition Process for the graduation of countries from Least Developed Country status while drawing attention to the vulnerabilities of island nations.

Speaking in the Second Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations yesterday, Ambassador Ahmed Sareer stated that though “Maldives had success in pioneering new measures to mitigate the effects of graduation ... the question of whether those efforts were enough has not been answered in the positive.”

Ambassador Sareer warned the United Nations that the transition process is in danger of becoming a burden for graduating nations rather than a boon. In view of this, the Maldives has been pushing for reforming the graduation process for over a decade. These efforts led to the creation of the United Nation’s Ad Hoc Working Group on the smooth transition strategy for countries graduating from the list of least developed countries.

Being an active participant in this group, Maldives has taken a lead ensuring the process of graduation is smooth, where graduating countries work hand in hand with their donor community to join the group of developing nations.

With the Maldives being a small island developing state, Ambassador Sareer also noted that it is extremely vulnerable to external shocks. Additionally its development costs are often prohibitively high due to its disbursed geographic nature. In order to overcome these vulnerabilities, Maldives advocated a collaborative approach where national deficiencies are taken into account.