June 20: Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) and Minister for Foreign Affairs Raghubir Mahaseth has said that Nepal’s graduation from the LDC category would be an important milestone in the country’s development trajectory.    
Addressing the ‘Joint Thematic Event of the UN General Assembly and Economic and Social Council on Least Developed Countries’ through a pre-recorded video on Saturday (June 19), DPM Mahaseth expressed Nepal’s commitment to make the graduation process smooth and sustainable by mobilizing finance from public as well as private sectors, and internal as well as external sources.    
DPM Mahaseth stressed that the development partners need to live up to their financing commitments to help address the investment gaps in the LDCs. He also called for international community’s support in line with the LDCs’ development needs, including in the areas of productive capacity, infrastructure, energy, and connectivity.    
Referring to the unrealized target of the Istanbul Programme of Action to enable graduation of half of the LDCs, he underlined the need to scale up collective action to match the collective ambition. The foreign minister further stressed that the United Nations Fifth Conference on the LDCs to be held in Doha in January 2022 must be a conference of hope offering adequate financing and means of implementation to ensure that the LDCs will not be left behind.    
The thematic event was jointly organized under the theme of ‘Diversifying the Financing Toolbox to Enhance Investment in Least Developed Countries’ by the President of General Assembly and the President of ECOSOC at UN Headquarters, New York. A number of Ministers and high-level participants attended the event, according to the Permanent Mission of Nepal to the United Nations. -- RSS