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Call for papers
Conference: Achieving Sustainable Development in the Least Developed Countries – Towards LDC-V
The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are low-income countries that face severe structural impediments to sustainable development. To help the LDCs address their challenges, the United Nations convenes a dedicated conference every ten years. The Fifth LDC Conference (LDC-V) will be held in 2021.
As an input to the LDC-V, the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) is organizing an academic Conference in collaboration with UNU-WIDER and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), with support from the Government of Finland. The academic Conference will take place on 15-16 October 2020 in Helsinki, Finland.
The Helsinki conference will bring together academic community, policy-makers and practitioners to solicit new thinking on the challenges and policy recommendations for LDCs for the next decade.
The Conference will address the structural challenges and emerging issues LDCs face in pursuing sustainable development. It will also identify policy recommendations which will significantly impact the extent to which LDCs can meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), effectively compete in the global economy and eventually move towards convergence with other more developed economies.
The conference calls for papers addressing the achievement of SDGs in least developed countries. The papers should be analytical in nature and offer concrete policy recommendations to provide policy makers with the latest analysis and suggestions for moving forward. The call is open for senior and junior academics, as well as experts from international organizations and NGOs.
While papers addressing any of the SDGs are welcome, the paper presentation at the conference will be organized along the following themes:
- Eradicating poverty, promoting sustainable agriculture, ending hunger and malnutrition in the LDCs
- Wellbeing in LDCs: addressing health, education, water, energy, ICT and reducing inequalities within LDCs and between LDCs and other countries
- Rethinking structural transformation in LDCs to achieve strong and sustained growth and robust employment generation, especially for the youth
- Megatrends impacting sustainable development in LDCs: frontier technologies, changing nature of work, migration and demographic changes
- Building resilience and sustainability: infrastructure, climate change, natural disasters, environmental degradation, management of natural resources and urbanization in LDCs
- Increasing LDCs’ share in global trade during a time of rising protectionism and, commodity dependence
- Building peaceful, just and inclusive societies, including achieving gender equality
- Mobilizing resources for sustainable development in LDCs: increasing public and private flows, addressing the rising and changing composition of debt, and curbing illicit financial flows
Interested applicants wishing to present their original research should submit the abstracts by 18 December 2019. Papers can be written in English or French. In case of any additional clarification, please email ohrlls-unhq@un.org.
