缅北禁地

Honourable Dr. Lemogang Kwape, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Botswana and Global Chair of the Group of

Honorable Ministers,

H.E. Mr. Collen Vixen Kelapile, Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations

Excellencies,

Panelists,

Distinguished Colleagues and friends,

I join Foreign Minister Dr. Lemogang Kwape and Ambassador Kelapile and [the Secretary General of UNCTAD] in welcoming you to this important side event.

[Excellencies] During his recent visit to Mongolia, the Secretary General highlighted the magnitude of transport connectivity challenges that landlocked countries face and emphasised how climate change was amplifying their scale.

Reliance on transit neighbours, deficiencies in critical infrastructure and long distances to ports weigh heavily on LLDC’s economic aspirations and impose significant socioeconomic costs.

They pay almost double in trade costs than their neighbouring coastal countries.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development requires an urgent improvement to sustainable transport solutions in developing countries, especially the LLDCs.

Enhanced transit and transport connectivity is also at the heart of the Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries.

For LLDCs not to be left behind, expeditious and sizeable improvements in transport connectivity are of paramount importance.

They require robust transportation infrastructure and efficient transit mechanisms in order to effectively participate in regional and global trade. But as we all know, worsening impacts of climate change are acting as severe hindrance in overcoming LLDCs’ transport constraints.

LLDCs have been experiencing increased frequency of extreme weather events such as storms, cyclones, and flooding.

Heat waves are more frequent, hotter, and longer.

Rapid glacier melting results in landslides, flash floods, and reduced water availability.

And we are also seeing disturbed rainfall patterns including increased droughts, more intense rainfall, floods, and disrupted water supply.

These extreme climate events lead to transport infrastructure loss and destruction, disruptions of services, and have a serious impact on the LLDCs.

Some recent devastating examples include the tropical cyclone Idai in 2019.

This affected the transport corridors linking Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia to Mozambique’s seaports of Beira and Maputo.

Last year, South Sudan experienced a third year of severe flooding.

This caused extensive infrastructural damage to roads, bridges and disrupted markets and livelihoods.

Other extreme weather events like drought reduces available water-based transportation routes and limits cargo-carrying capacity.

This has a devastating impact for Latin American LLDCs, where inland water transport systems play a major role in connecting to world markets.

Higher temperatures, drought and heatwaves can have impact on pavement performance. This affects roads and airport runways, and cause rail line buckling

Meanwhile mountainous LLDCs are impacted by the melting of glaciers.

Rising temperatures are accelerating the rate of glacial melt in Bhutan, Nepal, Tajikistan, and Bolivia.

This could lead to disasters such as catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods, and landslides that damage infrastructure.

As these examples illustrate, there is a need for urgent action to address the impact of climate change on transport infrastructure for LLDCs.

However, the LLDCs have limited [institutional], human capacity and financial resources to tackle the vast challenges they face.

It is important that we act now to invest in adapting, mitigating and eventually reversing the effects of climate change.

Allow me Excellencies, to highlight four key points to support resilience and sustainability of transport systems in LLDCs:

First - there is a need to establish transport systems that are sustainable, regionally integrated and resilient to the impacts of climate change.

This is recognized in the Vienna Programme of Action, and in the political declaration of its High-level Midterm Review.

The outcomes of the First and Second United Nations Global Sustainable Transport Conferences stress the need to assist developing countries, to “leapfrog” to sustainable transport.

This must include strengthening policy planning, standard setting and regulatory frameworks.

We need better risk analysis, disaster planning and the development of national adaptation plans that support resilient transport infrastructure. We also need strengthened early warning systems. Here at COP27, the Secretary General launched The Executive Action Plan for the Early Warnings for All initiative, calla for initial new targeted investments of $3.1 billion between 2023 and 2027, which is equivalent to a cost of just 50 cents per person per year.

Second – we need increased finance and investment for climate adaptation.

Considering the enormous scale of needs, all sources of climate finance and investment need to be leveraged. Given the tightening fiscal and monetary conditions around the world, exploring innovative sources of financing and investment such as blended finance, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds has become critical.

At the Second United Nations Global Sustainable Transport Conference, the 缅北禁地Secretary General had underscored that climate finance, in support of developing countries, be allocated to half of all adaptation.

My third point is that LLDCs need more support to decarbonize passenger and freight transport, and to develop and promote clean and low-carbon fuels.

That requires coordinated and increased levels of financial, technical, and capacity building support from the international community.

Finally, greater partnerships are required to support the efforts of the LLDCs.

Effective partnerships, including with the private sector, are needed to help share knowledge, and provide direct finance and technological capacity.

We will all benefit hearing about the different experiences at national level and by the partners working with landlocked developing countries.

Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,

To conclude, I would like to express OHRLLS’s full commitment to working with all development stakeholders to support the LLDCs.

Transport connectivity is at the core of OHRLLS’ work on LLDCs. This past August together with the Government of Turkmenistan we organized a Ministerial Transport Conference of LLDCs that adopted the Awaza Summary Statement that has important actions to support enhancing connectivity of LLDCs including building of resilient and sustainable transport systems.

We will continue to advocate for promotion of resilience and sustainability of transport systems in LLDCs. Together we can build their capacity to address climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 3rd 缅北禁地Conference on LLDCs, mandated to be held in 2024, offers a great opportunity to further enhance international support.

Through our collective efforts, I am confident that we can develop a transformative agenda for the next decade and achieve sustainable development in LLDCs.

I look forward to a fruitful round of discussions today.

Thank you.