42 Poor Nations Need Aid Doubled, U.N. Says

The misery of the world’s 42 poorest countries can be reversed only if financial aid is doubled, debt is reduced or written off and the nations slash their soaring birthrates, a U.N. report said Friday.

The birthrates in the poorest nations exceed, and therefore negate, whatever economic growth is achieved, it said.

“It will be of the utmost importance for the governments of the least-developed countries to turn around in the 1990s the alarming trend in high population growth,” the report said.

The report and recommendations came from the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development for final preparatory talks in Geneva from Monday to April 6 in advance of a full international conference on the least-developed countries in Paris from Sept. 3 to 14.

The conference, the main Third World forum in the U.N. system, noted that the number of least-developed countries rose from 31 in 1981 to 42--with 28 of them in Africa.

The classification is determined by a per-capita annual gross domestic product of about $200. Only one-third of the people in the least-developed countries have access to safe water and two-thirds of them are illiterate.

Their combined 413 million people account for 12% of the world population but produce just 1% of the combined gross national product and consume only 1% of world energy. Three-quarters of their people work in agriculture.

In its program to reverse the deteriorating plight of the nations, the U.N. conference said there must be “a substantial increase” in official development assistance on easier and longer terms.

Donors should double the current aid to the least-developed countries, the report said. It added that “bilateral debt should be written off” by creditor countries.

The 42 least-developed nations are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), Laos, Lesotho, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Samoa, Sao Tome, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Tuvalu (Ellice Islands), Uganda, Tanzania, Vanuatu (New Hebrides), Yemen and South Yemen.