Maldives among only three countries to ever graduate from least-developed status: UN report
30 Mar 2011, 2:11 PM
The Maldives is among only three countries to ever advance from the UN’s ‘least developed country’ (LDC) designation, according to a UN report reviewing the development of the world’s 51 poorest countries.
Only the Maldives (2010), Cape Verde (2007) and Botswana (1994) have ever graduated, leading UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to state that enduring marginalisation of the world’s 48 poorest countries promised “a future we cannot afford.”
“While the number of countries meeting the criteria of ‘least developed’ increased through the 1970s, 80s and 90s, the graduation rate from that grouping has been glacial,” the report’s authors said.
They extrapolated that despite limited economic and social progress, “the gap between the LDCs and the rest of the world, including the low middle income countries, is widening.”
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