Introduction

The United Nations least-developed countries (LDC] category comprises the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the work! - those that face structural handicaps to their sustainable development. There are currently 47 LDCs, of which 33 are situated in Africa, 9 in Asia, 4 in the Pacific and 1 in the Caribbean. The LDCs account for 12% of the global population, but for less than 2% of world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and less than 1% of global exports. So far, only five LDCs have graduated from the category since its inception in 1971, i.e. Botswana (1994) Cabo Verde (2007), Maldives (2011), Samoa (2014) and Equatorial Guinea (2017).