Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries - COVID-19

LDC Insight #1: COVID-19 recovery and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Why LDCs can’t just ‘build back better’

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 06:42:00 +0000

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12 August 2022 / Federica Irene Falomi and Taffere Tesfachew

In 2019, the �鶹APP Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, noted that “despite considerable efforts these past four years, we are not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030”^[1], suggesting that the global growth and development model was already suboptimal and unsustainable. Three years and a global pandemic later, years of progress towards SDGs have been revered or wiped out. Global poverty rate sharply increased from 8.3% in 2019 to 9.2% in 2020 due to COVID-19, representing the first increase in extreme poverty since 1998 and the largest since 1990, and setting back poverty reduction by around three years. The losses have been much higher for low-income countries, which have been set back by 8-9 years^[2]. Furthermore, the pandemic has not only exposed large inequalities across countries in terms of access to finance, health care services, medicines and vaccines but has also intensified them and widened the gap even further.

We have entered the Decade of Action to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity is more relevant than ever. However, if the SDGs are to be achieved globally by 2030 - in line with the principle of “leaving no one behind” - they must be achieved everywhere. To date, progress towards achieving the SDGs in the least developed countries has been uneven and is not on track to achieve the targets set in the 2030 Agenda. The pandemic abruptly interrupted a prolonged period of sustained growth for some least developed countries, which are collectively home to 14 per cent of the global population but comprise more than 50% of the world’s extremely poor and account for only 1.3 per cent of global GDP.

Given the post-COVID-19 trend and the persistent challenges facing the LDCs, it is highly likely that they will end up being “the battleground on which the 2030 Agenda will be won or lost”. Indeed, the SDGs recognize that these countries require special attention as demonstrated by the fact that 12 of the 17 SDGs directly and specifically target the least developed countries^[3].

LDCs require huge amounts of resources to recover from the recessions caused by the COVID-19 shock, but especially to set themselves on the path to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. UNCTAD has estimated that between 2021 and 2030 LDCs require investments of:

$462 billion annually to meet the growth target (Sustainable Development Goal 8.1);
$485 billion annually to eradicate extreme poverty (Sustainable Development Goal 1.1); and
$1,051 billion annually to double the manufacturing share of GDP (Sustainable Development Goal 9.2)^[4].

Thus, a key component of ‘building forward better’ should be the introduction of new sets of international support measures and a renewed international commitment to ensure that low-income countries, particularly LDCs, are not left behind – but instead regain the growth momentum that they lost with the COVID-19 shock. These are countries with structural impediments, limited productive capacity, low income, and low skills and knowledge base. Hence the need for special international support measures to assist them with transfer of technologies and the development of their science, technology, and innovation capacities, which are essential requirements for promoting technological learning and innovation.

According to the World Bank and recent UN projections, during 2022, the global economy is expected to experience uneven recovery and most low-income countries will register lower economic growth and deterioration in social indicators. While the Ukraine crisis and its negative impact on food and energy prices have contributed to this outcome, the single most important reason for the unequal recovery is the unequal access to the COVID-19 vaccine. Despite WHO’s ambitious target of 70% global vaccination coverage by mid-2022, the number of people in the poorest countries who have received a single dose of vaccine remain less than 10% compared to the average 80% in high-income countries. If the gap in vaccination rates between rich and poor countries persists, it is likely that the goals of early recovery and building forward better will remain distant dreams.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how far the world has come in technological and scientific knowledge accumulation as demonstrated by the speed in which vaccines were developed and the role played by technologies in sustaining economic and social interactions. When lockdown measure was introduced across countries to slow down the spread of coronavirus, lack of affordable access to internet in most LDCs meant that many people and businesses in these countries were denied of the high-speed networks required for remote learning, e-commerce, digital-based healthcare services, access to e-government and online business interaction. In this respect, the COVID-19 shock was a wake-up call for the LDCs and other low-income countries and an important lesson that they cannot afford to lag behind in their technological capabilities or miss active engagement in the new wave of rapid technological change.

At this time of current heightened uncertainty and multidimensional global crisis, LDCs need special international support measures more than ever. The right mix of policies and financial support to help them develop their science, technology and innovation capacities must be at the core of renewed international support measures for LDCs. International organizations can play a key role in assisting the LDCs to close the digital gap by facilitating opportunities for technology transfer, including through South-South cooperation, and drawing lessons from countries that have advanced digital ecosystem. The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be remembered as the Great Digital Accelerator, especially for its role in accelerating the need for digital transformation in the least developed countries. For this reason, the UN Technology Bank for LDCs calls upon the international community to give priority to the implementation of SDG’s Target 9c, which has already been missed. Target 9c focuses on the need to “significantly increase access to information and communication technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the internet in the Least Developed Countries by 2020”. Unfortunately, this target remains unmet, except in Bangladesh and Bhutan. The fact that this critical target remains unmet is a signal to the international community to act without delay and to bear in mind that the vision of meeting the SDGs by 2030 will not be achieved unless such persistent challenges in LDCs are addressed. To this end, with support of the Government of Türkiye and other Turkish institutions and drawing lessons from an initiative developed by the Ministry of Industry and Technology in Türkiye, the UN Technology Bank is piloting the Technology Makers Lab, a digital transformation training programme for youth in the LDCs to transform their skills base and enable them to face future shocks.

As countries dive into the promises of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it must be noted that no country has yet shown to be convincingly able to meet a set of basic human needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use^[5]. Indeed, even before the pandemic, trends along several dimensions with cross-cutting impacts across the entire 2030 Agenda were not moving in the right direction: rising inequalities, climate change, biodiversity loss and increasing amounts of waste from human activity. Countries have a duty to build forward better and put sustainable development at the heart of their recovery agenda, to enable fairer economic systems, reduce inequality and the number of people living in extreme poverty, create stronger health systems, a healthier natural environment, and more resilient societies. The impacts of unsustainable development are unevenly borne by countries. Although the least developed countries contributed the least to climate change, they suffer the most from its impacts and are expected to compensate for others. For instance, many developed countries export their post-consumer plastic waste passing on the problem to typically poorer countries to deal with. Climate change-induced rising sea levels have severe impacts on small Pacific atoll nations, including the two LDCs of Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, with entire islands at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to coastal flooding, storm surges, cyclones and land loss. LDCs experienced 70 per cent of the deaths caused by climate-related disasters over the last 50 years and reported more than 8.5 million people displaced due to disasters in 2020.

Hence, poorer countries need increased support from the rest of the world, counteracting current trends of shrinking overseas development assistance (ODA), fulfilling the promises made by the international community to advance climate finance, and placing people and the environment at the core of COVID-19 recovery packages. There will be no shared peace and prosperity unless we aim to achieve a truly inclusive recovery from the current global crisis and attain the 2030 Agenda through collective responsibility and renewed commitment to multilateralism. In the ‘Decade of Recovery and Action^[6], the SDGs should be used as a shared global framework to drive support for structural transformation in LDCs and build global systemic resilience.

Federica Irene Falomi is Economic Affairs Officer of the UN Technology Bank. Taffere Tesfachew is Acting Managing Director of the UN Technology Bank.

[1] Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General, Global Sustainable Development Report 2019: The Future is Now – Science for Achieving Sustainable Development, (�鶹APP, New York, 2019).

[2] Advance Unedited Version: Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals: Report of the Secretary-General 2022

[3]Target 1.a, 2.a, 3.c, 4.b/4.c, 7.b, 8.1/8.a, 9.2/9.a/9.c, 10.a/ 10.a.1/10.b, 11.c, 13.b/13.b.1, 14.6/ 14.7/14.7.1, 17.2/ 17.2.1/ 17.5/17.5.1/ 17.8/ 17.8.1/ 17.11/ 17.11.1/ 17.12/ 17.12.1/ 17.18.

[4] UNCTAD (2021). The Least Developed Countries Report 2021. The least developed countries in the post-COVID world: Learning from 50 years of experience. �鶹APP. New York and Geneva.

[5] Independent Group of Scientists appointed by the Secretary-General, Global Sustainable Development Report 2019: The Future is Now – Science for Achieving Sustainable Development, (�鶹APP, New York, 2019).

[6] G. Schmidt-Traub (2020). The SDGs can guide our recovery. UNA-UK.

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WISH Summit: Technology Transfer: Future-proofing Health for All

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 18:21:00 +0000

Monday, 16 November 2020 - 8:15pm to 9:00pm

Innovative health technologies – rapidly developed, equitably accessible, and easily diffused - can help countries sustainably reduce their health vulnerabilities and become resilient to future shocks.

The WISH Summit and the UN Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries will through this session facilitate an exchange of ideas and share experiences on systematic approaches to creating health resilience, using technology transfer for COVID -19 as a starting point.

How can the world access and diffuse key health technologies for a more resilient future?
What needs doing, by whom?

SPEAKERS:

Ms. Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utoikamanu, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States
Dr. Mario Sanchez, Founder at MSG Pharma
Dr. Chun Yuan Chiang, Founder at IHDpay Group
Mr. Majid Kaddoumi, Vice President and Managing Director of Medtronic Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa
Mr. Joshua Setipa, Managing Director of UN Technology Bank
Ms. Tesi Rusagara, Managing Director of the Kigali Innovation City

VIDEO

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Critical COVID-19 protective supplies delivered to frontline workers in Kingdom of Lesotho

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 17:21:00 +0000

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UN Technology Bank

Gebze - A donation of 100,000 facemasks has been handed to frontline workers in the Kingdom of Lesotho in an effort to urgently protect key workers, such as medics, police and boarder control staff from COVID-19. The protective supplies are intended for use whilst local production is being ramped up.

The masks were presented to The Government of Lesotho by Salvator Niyonzima, UN Resident Coordinator, as a donation from the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and the Organizing Committee of World Eco-Design Conference. Both organizations have recently formed a joint venture which supports the world’s least developed countries to develop industrial design through south-south cooperation.

“COVID-19 is a global pandemic severely impacting every community and requiring action from each individual. In Lesotho we are proud of those serving on the frontline to help protect communities,” said Hon. Mathibeli Mokhothu, Deputy Prime Minister. “Today’s generous donation will help these individuals continue their work, with increased protection, whilst we scale up manufacturing in-country.”

The World Health Organisation recommends the use of facemasks as an essential preventative and mitigation measure against COVID-19. Lesotho was the last country to record a case of COVID-19 in the African continent. Plans to scale up local manufacturing in the Kingdom are currently underway, but in the meantime the demand for protective gear persists.

“This donation will go a long way in ensuring that our front-line workers on whom we all depend, work under the safest conditions, as they continue to step directly into COVID-19’s path to support the afflicted and help curb the spread of the virus,” said Thabo Khasipe, CEO, NACOSEC.

Transactions facilitated by the UN Technology Bank under its Tech Access Partnership initiative, for local manufacturing of personal protective equipment (PPE), are scheduled to be concluded in the coming weeks with 3 Basotho owned companies, producing for the local and regional markets. Such local production of PPE will not only aid in the fight against COVID-19 but will also improve cost effectiveness and boost job creation.

“The provision of these masks is a great step towards meeting the immediate health needs of the people of Lesotho. The UN Technology Bank is committed to forming partnerships that can respond quickly and efficiently to COVID-19, ensuring strong and sustainable health systems,” said Joshua Setipa, Managing Director of the UN Technology Bank “Local production of health technologies remains vital to fighting COVID19, as well as for the Post-COVID-19 recovery.”

“WEDC aims to promote integration of design, ecology, and society as well as sustainable development worldwide, including in developing and least developed countries. The �鶹APP Technology Bank, World Eco-Design Conference and Lesotho Government have joined hands to fight the pandemic. This PPE equipment will serve to provide relief to where it is critically needed in Lesotho. It is my sincere hope that the government of Lesotho will defeat this pandemic soon", said Mr. Ying Fangtian, President of the Organizing Committee of World Eco-Design Conference."

In May this year The UN Technology Bank launched the Tech Access Partnership, as part of a UN coordinated approach to help countries like Lesotho develop local manufacturing expertise and capabilities for health technologies. In partnership with UNDP, UNCTAD and WHO, the Tech Access Partnership helps put those seeking access to lifesaving health technologies in touch with manufacturers and partners who can share information, technical expertise and resources to scale up production of these tools in country.

The Tech Access Partnership contributes not only to increasing countries’ capacity to fight COVID-19, but also reduces reliance on global supply chains, boosting resilience and underpinning sustainable health systems for the future, in line with Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

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UN agencies launch Tech Access Partnership in joint effort to scale up local production of life-saving health technologies for COVID-19

Anonymous — Tue, 12 May 2020 17:21:00 +0000

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COVID-19 in Mali.

World Bank / Ousmane Traore

New York - The �鶹APP Technology Bank, together with the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Health Organization (WHO), launched the Tech Access Partnership (TAP) on 12 May 2020, as part of a coordinated approach to strengthen developing countries’ responses to COVID-19 and increase access to lifesaving health technologies.

As demand for personal protective equipment, medical devices and diagnostics increases exponentially amid the global pandemic, countries with limited resources are often unable to purchase or produce the tools they need to mount effective responses to COVID-19. Lack of access to technical expertise, training and regulatory frameworks also limit local production of essential equipment in these regions, particularly for more complex products like ventilators.

TAP aims to address critical shortages of essential health technologies and equipment by connecting manufacturers with critical expertise and emerging manufacturers in developing countries to share the information, technical expertise and resources necessary to scale up production of these tools. The Partnership will also support countries to develop affordable technologies and equipment that meet quality and safety standards.

“Now, more than ever, the global community needs to unite to save lives and secure sustainable futures. Inequalities are exacerbating the technology and digital divide when it comes to opportunities for youth, creating a divide that threatens to leave them behind,” said Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN. “Increasing access to necessary technologies through partnerships, is a crucial component of the �鶹APP’ COVID-19 health, humanitarian and socio-economic response.”

TAP will be led by the UN Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries, established in 2016 to assist governments with the development and adaptation of new technologies. The initiative, which is open to all developing countries, will also be supported by its core partners, UNDP, UNCTAD and WHO.

“Without access to lifesaving technologies, many developing countries are unprepared for the potentially devastating impact of COVID-19,” said Joshua Setipa, Managing Director, UN Technology Bank. “By enabling developing countries to produce these technologies themselves, we can help set them on the path to recovery.”

TAP’s key functions will include:

Product Information – a digital warehouse of manufacturing and design specifications, technical knowledge and information required to increase capacity.
Technical Guidance – a lifeline of technical support to help manufacturers troubleshoot issues they may encounter as they seek to ramp up production, including information on market dynamics and regulatory hurdles.
Partnerships – a platform to match companies based on expertise, needs and capacity.

The initiative is guided by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the UN’s call for shared responsibility and solidarity during the COVID-19 crisis.

“TAP’s role in advancing more equitable access to critical health technologies is fundamental to help developing countries in responding to the immediate and devastating effects of COVID-19,” said Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator. “Moreover, the partnership’s efforts to increase access to critical knowledge, technical tools and guidance will boost the resilience of countries and societies to future shocks – while helping to drive their socio-economic recovery at the same time.”

“COVID-19 has shown us that a disease outbreak anywhere is a threat everywhere. We must stand together to support all countries and ensure equitable access to lifesaving technologies,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO. “Scaling up access to medicines and health technologies in these countries is essential to slow new infections and avoid unnecessary deaths.”

TAP will also collaborate with other relevant initiatives to ensure COVID-19 response efforts are coordinated and complementary. The partnership is centered in the UN Development System’s overall approach to counter the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which includes scaling up global capacity for testing and treatment, providing social protections for the most vulnerable and making countries resilient to future pandemics.

“The Technology Access Partnership can be an important part of the effort to help developing countries recover from this crisis,” said Dr. Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD. “By expanding the skills and capacity of local manufacturers, the initiative can boost innovation and contribute to inclusive economic growth.”

As an initial pilot, TAP will begin working with manufacturers in several developing countries around the world.

“There’s an urgent need to start filling gaps in technology and equipment to meet the health needs of our population,” said Cham Prasidh, Senior Minister and Minister of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation of Cambodia. “Our country faces similar challenges as other developing countries: lack of special-purpose spare parts, specific technical know-how, experience with different technologies, and funding for research and development. Greater access to these tools offered under TAP will save lives, boost our country’s responses to COVID-19 and help us prepare for future crises.”

Download the press release (PDF format)

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