Spotlight on Landlocked Developing Countries

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Uganda’s Malaba town borders Kenya to the east and is a major entry point for goods destined for landlocked Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan from Kenya’s Mombasa Port. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

NAIROBI, Aug 1 2025 (IPS) – Landlocked developing countries face a unique set of challenges. Without coastal ports, they rely on transit nations, causing higher trade costs and delays.

To explore solutions to these complex hurdles, the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) or LLDC3, will take place in Awaza, Turkmenistan, 5–8 August 2025.

May Yaacoub, LLDC3 spokesperson and head of Advocacy and Outreach at the United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and the Small Island Developing States (UNOHRLLS), told IPS that the conference is “an opportunity to unlock the full potential of landlocked countries and address the challenges faced by some of the world’s most marginalized countries.”

“In every LLDC the map itself shapes the economy. Without a coastline, even the simplest export, whether cotton lint, copper cathode or cloud‑based software, must first cross at least one foreign border and frequently an entire transit corridor before it reaches a port,” Tomás Manuel González Álvarez, Senior Programme Management Officer and LLDC Team Lead at UNOHRLLS told IPS.

“The UN estimates that this physical detour means average transport costs in LLDCs are about 1.4 times higher than in comparable coastal economies. Those added costs depress profit margins, narrow the range of viable products and deter investors who value just‑in‑time delivery.”

Against this backdrop and while lacking direct sea access causes and exacerbates hurdles in trade, connectivity, and development, Yaacoub says LLDCs host vibrant communities with untapped potential and that these countries “have the ideas and know what they need to prosper. By supporting them at LLDC3 with partnerships, innovations and cooperation, we can help to build a more equitable and prosperous future for all.”

“This conference comes at the heels of the expiration of the Vienna Programme of Actions, which was adopted in Vienna, Austria, in November 2014, during LLDC2. LLDC3 will continue the work of LLDC2 and serve as a platform to explore innovative solutions, build meaningful and strategic partnerships, and increase the investment in LLDCs,” she observed.

The theme of the conference is ‘Driving Progress through Partnerships’, which she says underscores a shift from donor-recipient dynamics to mutual accountability and co-investment. And, that his includes a stronger role for transit countries, enhanced multilateral cooperation, and alignment with the SDGs, Paris Agreement and the Pact of the Future.

Álvarez emphasizes that this key, landlockedness, is experienced very differently and that the conference agenda reflects an understanding of these complexities. In Africa, “for countries such as Niger or Zambia, the critical pain point is the sheer length and fragility of overland routes—1,800 km from Niamey to Cotonou; 1,900 km from Lusaka to Durban.”

“Road and rail bottlenecks meet frequent customs stops and, in parts of the Sahel, insecurity. The result is chronic delays and freight rates that can exceed the f.o.b. (a term that defines who pays for the transportation costs) value of low‑margin agricultural commodities.”

He says in Asia, Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan possess better road and rail grids yet face. At the same time, these economies are accelerating an energy transition, moving from hydrocarbons to renewables and green hydrogen so they now need corridors that can carry high‑voltage electricity and fiber as well as bulk ore.

“Bolivia and Paraguay rely on the 3,300‑km Paraguay–Paraná waterway for almost four‑fifths of their trade. Low river levels during recent droughts have stranded barges and cost Paraguay an estimated USD 300 million in 2024 alone. Moreover, new tolls levied by Argentina highlight the vulnerability that comes with dependence on a single transit state,” he says.

Within this context, Yaacoub says LLDC3 represents a major change in both scope and ambition compared to its predecessors—LLDC1 held in Almaty in 2003, which was a ministerial meeting, and LLDC2 in Vienna in 2014. The first conference of this nature, or LLDC1 focused primarily on transit policy, infrastructure development, international trade, and technical and financial assistance.

LLDC2 expanded to include structural economic transformation, regional integration, and means of implementation. Notably, she says, LLDC3 “introduces a more holistic and forward-looking agenda, emphasizing climate resilience and adaptation, digital transformation and technology access, sustainable industrialization, reforming the global financial architecture, shock-resilience and disaster risk reduction.”

Yaacoub says the LLDC3 agenda reflects the unprecedented global complexities of the current era—climate change, pandemics, geopolitical tensions, and economic shocks. Key thematic areas include climate vulnerability and financing, with an emphasis on operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund, doubling adaptation finance, and ensuring access to concessional resources.

Álvarez says the conference is particularly focused on converting the narrative from landlocked to land‑linked and that unlocking these countries potential relies on a strategy built on mutually reinforcing pillars that include “how Multibillion‑dollar investments in regional corridors, the Central and Northern Corridors in East Africa, the Trans‑Caspian route into Europe, and new dry‑ports on the Paraguay‑Paraná system can cut door‑to‑port time by 30 percent within the decade.”

He says building climate resilience is critical due to a “heavy reliance of LLDCs on agriculture, especially rain-fed agriculture, as a primary source of income, employment, and sustenance. Climate variability has already begun to disrupt agricultural cycles, reduce crop yields, and threaten food security. These effects ripple across rural economies, deepening poverty and forcing difficult choices for households.”

Álvarez says these issues are critical, as the same remoteness that inflates freight costs also hampers relief when drought, flood or storm strikes. Many LLDCs suffer disproportionately from climate‑related disasters because they lack redundant road and telecom links, and that “as extreme weather intensifies, production shocks travel quickly through thinly diversified economies and can wipe out years of growth.”

Overall, he says, “collectively these headwinds jeopardize progress on at least six Sustainable Development Goals—most visibly Goals 1 (No Poverty), 9 (Industry and Infrastructure) and 13 (Climate Action). Unless structural constraints are eased, many LLDCs risk missing the 2030 milestones by a full generation.”

Álvarez says the “developmental drag created by geography is not merely inconvenient; it is systemic.”

Stressing that high logistics costs shrink the set of competitive exports and that “many LLDCs remain reliant on two or three unprocessed commodities, leaving them vulnerable to price swings and limiting the spill‑overs that normally accompany industrial clustering.”

He says limited fiscal space means that governments struggle to finance education, health and social protection at scale. LLDCs as a group record poverty rates 50–60 percent higher than the global developing‑country average and score lower on the World Bank’s human‑capital index, 0.36 versus 0.48 in 2024.

Yaacoub confirms that all these issues will be explored in depth across key thematic areas that also include the private sector, civil society and youth engagement to foster inclusive partnerships and South-South and Triangular Cooperation with an emphasis on regional and interregional collaboration.

“This inclusive process ensures that the new Awaza Programme of Action is grounded in the lived realities of LLDCs and their partners,” she observes.

After all is said and done, Yaacoub says the most desirable outcome from the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries would be the global endorsement and operationalization of the Awaza Programme of Action, which is a transformative and actionable framework that empowers LLDCs to overcome their structural challenges and thrive in a rapidly evolving global landscape.

Stressing that LLDC3 will serve as “a high-level platform to present, promote, and mobilize support for the implementation of the Awaza PoA that was adopted in December 2024. The second outcome would be the mobilization of resources and investment commitments from development partners to support infrastructure, climate resilience, and digital transformation.”

Ultimately, she is optimistic that the conference will lead to strengthened partnerships and regional cooperation to renew and expand transit agreements and regional integration initiatives, including enhanced South-South and Triangular Cooperation frameworks and commitments to multilateral collaboration aligned with the SDGs, the Paris Agreement and the pact of the Future.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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