President Muhammadu Buhari has called on developed and developing nations to grant duty-free and quota-free market access for products from the world’s 46 least-developed countries to ensure their regional and global value chain integration.

In a statement, Garba Shehu, the president’s spokesman, said Mr Buhari, who made the call in Doha, Qatar, at the UN Conference of Least Developed Countries, maintained that this had become imperative to ensure their integration in regional and global value chains.

The president strongly criticised the current structure of the global financial system, which places an unsustainable external debt burden on the most vulnerable countries.

Mr Buhari warned that such debt burdens would make it extremely difficult for LDCs to meet the 2030 Agenda for Seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

He recalled that leaders endorsed the SDGs in 2015, noting that it would undoubtedly require full commitment to be achieved.

Mr Buhari, however, said that achieving the SDGs remained bleak for several countries, especially the least developed ones.

He attributed this to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the Russia-Ukraine crisis, stating, ‘‘The Least Developed Countries are often faced with developmental vulnerabilities and challenges that are not always of their making. These pose huge obstacles to their development efforts, hence the need for urgent and robust assistance to help unlock their potentials and build socio-economic resilience.”

According to him, this assistance can be provided within the Doha Programme of Action framework designed to help LDCs exit their current classification.

The Nigerian leader challenged developed countries, civil society actors, the private sector, and the business community to partner with the LDCs to provide the necessary resources and capacity to deliver development outcomes in the economic, social, and environmental aspects of the 2030 Agenda.

He listed some measures to help LDCs recover from COVID-19, achieve SDGs, and develop and prosper over the long term.

While expounding on the rising debt burden, Mr Buhari underscored the need for reforms of the international financial architecture that prioritises the need of Least Developed Countries.

He aligned with the United Nations secretary general’s description of the global financial system as an “unfair debt architecture that not only charges poor countries much more money to borrow on the market than advanced economies but downgrades them when they even think of restructuring their debt or applying for debt relief.”

On trade issues, the president emphasised modalities to enhance transit cooperation and access to global e-commerce platforms.

‘‘The adoption of a global coordination mechanism to systematically monitor illicit financial flows and engender support for a United Nations International Convention on tax matters to eliminate base erosion and profit shifting, tax evasion, capital gains tax and other tax abuses is essential to achieving the SDGs and promoting security and economic prosperity,’’ he stressed.

On Nigeria’s expectation for the conference, Mr Buhari expressed optimism that the Doha Programme of Action would accelerate exports from LDCs by 2031 by facilitating their access to foreign markets in line with the World Trade Organization Facilitation Agreement.

According to Mr Buhari, LDCs continue to suffer disproportionately from climate change despite contributing least to its causes.

He added that countries must prioritise cutting global emissions and work with determination to hold warming to 1.5 degrees, thereby securing the children’s future.

(NAN)