麻豆APP

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important source of development finance for the 44 least developed countries (LDCs). FDI is complementary to domestic resource mobilization and investment as well as to official development assistance (ODA). Together with integration into global and regional trade and value chains, international investment can be an important driver of sustainable economic growth, employment, technological transformation, and productive diversification. However, for the LDCs, FDI flows have remained historically small in volume and concentrated in a few countries and sectors. In 2024, the latest data available shows that while global FDI flows reached a record high of $37 billion, the LDCs’ share of global FDI flows remained below 2.5%. See graph below.

UNCTAD Statistics

The long-standing characteristics of FDI flows in LDCs clearly point to the inability of the vast majority of countries in this group to attract FDI flows, not only in higher volumes but also of a kind that creates local employment and decent work, promotes skills development, learning effects and demand for local firms. The importance of promoting FDI flows that help make progress towards a country’s sustainable development goals and commitments cannot be understated, especially for the LDCs.

Mandate

In the Doha Programme of Action for LDCs (DPOA), UN member states reaffirmed the essential nature of foreign direct investment (FDI) to SDG achievement, noted the lack of progress by the international community in securing the needed FDI for LDCs, and requested the Secretary-General (SG) to produce a feasibility study for the establishment of an International Investment Support Centre (IISC) dedicated to that purpose.

Findings of the feasibility study were published in the 2024 Report of the Secretary-General A/79/505, according to which the main functions of an IISC entail on-demand, long-term, country-tailored technical assistance, starting with the following elements:

• A whole-of-government diagnostic of institutional capacities for the nine government functions essential to FDI cultivation
• Securing high-level commitment to coordinate whole-of-government implementation, including by raising awareness among senior officials and technical staff on different investment and investor types and what is required of government to win each
• A national multi stakeholder consultation to translate development objectives into specific subsectors and projects to be pursued
• A national FDI plan detailing steps for institutional capacity-building and the pursuit of specific investment projects
• Engagement of technically relevant international organizations and development partners throughout the process to connect the client country to the technical assistance needed to deliver on the national FDI plan

Adopted in July 2025, the Outcome Document of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, the “Sevilla Commitment”, contains the UN Member States’ commitment toward the establishment and operationalization of an IISC for LDCs building on the feasibility study of the Secretary-General. In its resolution 80/150 on the follow up to the Fifth UN Conference on the LDCs, the General Assembly reiterated the decision in the Sevilla Commitment and looked forward “to the final recommendations from pilot projects under the feasibility study for the international investment support centre”, OP 42.

Way Forward

To implement this General Assembly mandate, OHRLLS intends to pilot the basic functions of the IISC in one or two LDCs, so as to provide UN Member States with a sense of their potential for novel impact, as member states set about deliberating the next steps in the establishment and operationalization of the IISC.

Documents