缅北禁地

I thank you Mr. Moderator for giving me the floor.

I thank Foreign Secretary Paudyal for his insightful remarks.

Excellencies, 
Distinguished Colleagues, 
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to join UNCDF and other co-organizers for this important event. 

I commend UNCDF for all its work in the area of blended financing, especially for the LDCs.

My Office, the UN-OHRLLS, is mandated to support 92 of the most vulnerable countries – the 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), 32 Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), and 37 Small Island Developing States (SIDS).   None of these countries can advance their development agendas without the necessary financing.

All of them – especially the LDCs - face acute financing gaps in achieving the SDGs. 

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, these countries were far behind -- the social and economic consequences of the pandemic, in addition to other, overlapping crises, aggravated their already-difficult situation. 

According to the IMF, Low Income Countries, which make up most LDCs, require USD 250 billion just to get back on their pre-pandemic growth trajectory. 

Against a backdrop of shrinking fiscal space, the cost of borrowing has continued to rise.  The debt situation has worsened in many of these countries, with some defaulting for the first time. 

LDCs dedicate 14 per cent of their domestic revenue to interest payments, compared to only around 3.5 per cent in developed countries. 

To make matters worse, Foreign Direct Investment to LDCs continued to remain very low and dropped by 16% in 2022 alone. 

To recover lost ground and achieve the SDGs, the most vulnerable countries will need trillions – not billions – in affordable financing.  

However, major institutional investors are often hesitant to engage with many of these countries due to a host of factors, such as high perceived risk, small project sizes, high overhead fixed costs, lack of data and functioning markets, and weak infrastructure.

Excellencies, 
Distinguished Colleagues,

Blended finance can offer a way forward. 

By mixing concessional and non-confessional finance, blended finance can mobilize additional private sector investment.  It does so by mitigating risk, making development projects more appealing to private investors.

Blended finance also fosters efficiency and innovation and helps better leverage expertise.

It helps build capacity through training, technology transfer and knowledge sharing.

And it encourages investments in sectors that are key enablers for achieving the SDGs, such as infrastructure, energy access and digital connectivity.

Despite these clear benefits, LDCs and other vulnerable countries have not benefitted fully from blended finance, which remains an important source of untapped potential. 

The Addis Ababa Action Agenda identified that out of the global flow of blended finance, only 6% went to the LDCs. Therefore, the Doha Programme of Action for the LDCs stresses the importance of affording the LDCs with greater access to blended finance opportunities.
 As we prepare for the 3rd LLDCs Conference to be held in Kigali and the 4th SIDs Conference to be held in Antigua and Barbuda in 2024, we must mobilize further multistakeholder support to fully leverage the benefits of blended financing for these two groups of countries.

I very much look forward to today’s presentations and discussion which I trust will advance our understanding on the policies and partnerships that will unlock these financial flows.

I thank you.