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Millions of people are living in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), the poorest of the poor. Getting them out of that situation is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks. Since 1971, the United Nations has recognized LDCs as a category of countries characterized by, among others, dependence on international trade, rapid population growth, low literacy, an unskilled labor force and poorly developed institutions. This research analyzes the patterns in the evolution of a group of LDCs that have led them to graduation. This paper assesses whether the established way to leave this group of countries is realistic and foundational for future progress. The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 is a brief introduction on LDCs and their characteristics, Section 2 presents the method applied to obtain the results, focusing on criteria that must be met; Section 3 provides the results for the countries in the graduation process; Section 4 includes a discussion and comments on the results; Section 5 summarizes the main findings and draws conclusions. Additionally, a bibliographical review of the literature consulted is provided. First published online 18 March 2025

This interview stems from the interest of four Brazilian scholars in contributing to the study of foreign policy through dialogue with practitioners. As the study about foreign policy becomes more reflexive and critical, we turned to a Brazilian diplomat, Rubens Ricupero, who based on his vast and often difficult experience, has written about his interactions with the international world and strived to establish a dialogue with the academic world. Between May and July 2021, Ambassador Ricupero shared with us his views on the difficulties and possibilities of dialogue regarding multilateral agreements and institutions, such as the GATT and the UNCTAD.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first is to explore the convergence of corporate governance (CG) codes of 11 Asian emerging economies with the United Nations (UN) CG guidelines (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ISAR benchmark). The second is to find the compliance level of firms in each country with the UN CG guidelines. Design/methodology/approach Based on the 2017 GDP growth rate, the top 11 emerging economies were selected. CG codes of each country were then analyzed by using content analysis to find the convergence level with the UN CG guidelines. To find the compliance level of individual firms in each sample country, a sample of the top 15 non-financial listed firms were selected from each country, and their annual reports were analyzed. The binary scoring method was used. Findings After analyzing the 11 national CG codes, 1 UN CG guidelines and 150 annual reports, this study found that Pakistan and Philippines CG codes have the highest level of convergence toward the outsider model recommended by UN CG guidelines, whereas China and India have the lowest compliance score. The Indian, Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian listed firms showed more compliance toward the UN CG guidelines than their respective national CG codes. Originality/value By analyzing the top 11 emerging economies, and top 15 listed enterprises in each country, this study offered a combined convergence and compliance evidence at two different levels, i.e. country and firm-level. This study’s findings would be equally helpful for regulators, policymakers and investors in assessing their country’s CG codes against the international recommended best practices.

Maritime connectivity is becoming increasingly important due to its inextricable relation to maritime trade, especially in the global economy. This paper presents a robust framework to rank countries on their maritime connectivity. Typically, in most index creation models, the arithmetic mean is used to build a composite index. In this paper, we propose a more reliable ranking approach, by applying the method of stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA). In this, we take into account the variability in the weights assigned to the connectivity factors, thus producing a probabilistic ranking for each country (i.e., the probability to achieve a certain rank). UNCTAD’s ranking, based simply on the arithmetic mean, where all the weights are equal, becomes a special case of our approach. Our results show that China achieves the highest level of connectivity, followed by Singapore.

As the international division of labour becomes more entrenched, the distance goods travel before they reach the final consumer increases; at least this was the case before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. International trade and cross-border cargo movements generate significant carbon emissions. Despite theoretical advances, empirical studies frequently draw contradictory conclusions and the influence of international trade on a country’s decarbonization efforts is inconclusive. This study examines the carbon emissions caused by countries’ transportation services on global value chains. The input–output (IO) model and the 2015 multi-regional environmental input–output table from the UNCTAD-Eora database are employed. The input–output approach was used to determine the carbon emissions generated by the transport sector, along global value chains, in 190 countries. Environmentally extended IO analysis then reallocates emissions responsibilities of the transport sector from production to consumption. The study identifies which country’s transport sectors add more value or emit more CO2. Our findings indicated that: (1) the transportation industry of a country may have a detrimental effect on the environment while generating minimal economic benefit; and (2) a country’s transport industry may be tightly related to global value chain operations, but does not create considerable environmental impact. Given the significant differences in emissions intensity, we propose not only calculating the production-based accounting (PBA) of CO2 emissions, but also the consumption-based accounting (CBA). If CBA emissions are lower than PBA emissions, a country’s transport sector is in carbon-leakage credit. The top three countries with the highest carbon-leakage credit for the transport sector were China, Russia and USA. If carbon emissions are taken into consideration, some nations may cease to possess a comparative advantage in manufacturing and trade.

The emergence and diffusion of coronavirus (COVID-19) have brought a lot of impacts on various spheres of human endeavours including maritime trading. This paper explores the effect of the lockdown on maritime port calls for selected vessels in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) regions (East, Middle, South, and West Africa). The study utilizes port calls data of the maritime profile of the global economies obtained from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Statistics between 2018 and 2021. Data include port calls for liquid bulk carrier, liquefied petroleum gas, dry bulk carrier, dry break bulk carrier, roll-on-roll-off, and container carrier. The analysis of data involves the use of exploratory technique to reveal dimensions of performance by various carriers across the regions. The results picture the kind of response of port calls in all the regions akin to the response from other regions of the world. However, the study observes that though responses to COVID-19 lockdown across the globe were similar, SSA regions were slow in recovering from the decline in port calls when compared to the developed and some rapidly developing economies of the world due to the region's lack of economic resilience. Thus, since ports have been identified as vulnerable to economic, social, institutional, and environmental shocks, and to dynamic and highly unpredictable demand for port services, policymakers of various nationals in the SSA may need to examine the patterns of performance of vessels in the regions to manage trade flows more effectively as a way of responding to future dynamics in maritime trade in the region.

In recent decades, a number of initiatives have been undertaken to reduce poverty and improve the economic situation of Least Developed Countries (LCDs), but there are still problems that prevent them from progressing toward their goals. This article studies the scientific contributions related to the issue of the LCDs to detect how these countries can achieve sustained economic growth with full use of their capacities, allowing access to new forms of production that could generate products and activities with greater added value. The research has been carried out using bibliometric tools (Vosviewer and Biblioshiny) and the data have been extracted from Web of Science and Scopus. This method includes the topics that have been dealt with the most, the trend followed by these publications, the concentration of authors and the responses that scientific journals offer on LDCs. In conclusion, there has been increased concern about these issues, especially around the topic of trade, sustainability, and the African continent, albeit with gaps in aspects such as the importance of raw materials, official development aid, transportation, and the distribution of its products, as well as other key variables to achieve its future development. As a recommendation, we suggest that the group of researchers on the subject must be stimulated so that the message provokes a reaction regarding the importance of the issues affecting these countries, their painful consequences, and the need to find adequate solutions considering their social and humanitarian significance. It is about raising awareness among the scientific community on topics that have been largely overshadowed by more media-driven current issues. Plain language summary This work aims to analyse the evolution and concentration of studies on the issue of Least Developed Countries to detect the topics that researchers have most discussed. These are matters of great economic and social importance, affecting two-thirds of the planet. It analyses the work and research carried out to detect how these countries can achieve sustained economic growth with full use of their capacities, allowing access to new forms of production that could generate products and activities with greater added value. The work is therefore structured as follows: First, a description is given of the characteristics of LDCs and the different initiatives that have been taken over the last 50 years to reduce poverty and improve their socio-economic situation. Secondly, following the analysis carried out in the first part, it describes the problems that prevent LDCs from progressing in their objectives and highlights the main contributions in the existing literature on the subject. This is a summary of the different perspectives and theories that attempt to explain the problems related to LDCs, the most appropriate model designs that have been proposed, the most successful strategies, the validity of the data used, on which the conclusions of the studies will depend. Thirdly, we apply a bibliometric analysis of the works that have addressed the issue of LDCs. This method includes the topics that have been dealt with the most, the trend followed by these publications, the concentration of authors and the responses that scientific journals offer on LDCs. It should be noted that this is one of the few research studies to have used this methodology to address this issue. This article is of great interest to experts, public institutions and researchers sensitive to problems of such great importance and so widespread that they affect a large part of the world population.

The article is devoted to highlighting of the results of scientific and practical research aimed at solving the problem of ensuring the comparability of enterprises' non-financial reporting data. The issues of current stage of non-financial reporting implementation are identified, including the lack of comparability of data disclosed in such reporting between companies, undustries and countries. These caused the difficulties with the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals attainment. The results presented in the article is a part of the global overall countries’ case study of companies non-financial reporting practice in terms of SDGs’ attainment managed by UNCTAD. The ways and solutions to ensure the comparability of non-financial reporting data are suggested. The objective of the study is to determine the possility to align the company's core indicators with macro-indicators of SDGs attainment in appropriate areas. Case of Ukraine in the field of aggregation statistical data on progress in SDGs attainment and assessment of the private sector contribution to this process. The study was based on data from non-financial reporting of Ukrainian company for 2017-2018. This project was conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Guidance on core indicators for entity reporting on contribution towards implementation of SDGs, developed by ISAR-UNCTAD.

Lomé Conventions I (1975) and II (1979) were the first regional trade agreements (RTAs) between the European Community (EC) and the group of postcolonial countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP). Specialized scholarship offers rich analyses of those Conventions; however, little is known about the role of law and lawyers in their making, and their relevance for present-day debates about RTAs. This article advances existing knowledge in two ways. First, it historicizes the more visible role of law in constituting Lomé as a legal regime for governing EC-ACP regionalism. It then argues that the Conventions were distinct from existing RTAs due to their unique centrality on social and economic development; and from present-day RTAs, because they were conceived not simply as instrumental to but also as constitutive of development. Second, by historicizing the less visible role of law and lawyers in the Lomé regime, the article identifies that a specialist conception of South-North RTAs was refined to govern which ideas, projects, norms, and institutions were applicable to Lomé. This distinct conception – called the development framework – was critical in creating the conditions of possibility for decision-makers negotiate, interpret, and manage the Conventions. Those findings challenge conventional wisdom on two grounds. They suggest that Lomé was unique not for embodying a new model but for consolidating the development framework’s dominance. They contest present-day understanding of RTAs as textual manifestations of a universal concept by demonstrating the existence of competing conceptions, which express distinct notions of RTAs’ purpose, content, and form.