Challenges of the Least Developed Countries

The persistently high incidence of poverty, poor institutional capacity, inadequate human resources, low levels of economic and export diversification and inadequate infrastructure, melded with significant external debt burdens and decreased inflows of official development assistance, have coerced the least developed countries in the Asian and Pacific region into a position in which they generally have become the weakest segment of the international community. The present publication is a collection of papers presented at the meeting on governance and trade-related issues in least developed countries of the region which aimed to address the socio-economic challenges faced by these countries.