Ministerial Meeting of Landlocked Developing Countries at MC14
Integrating LLDCs into the Multilateral Trading System
Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) continue to face persistent and structural trade challenges linked to geography, high transit and logistics costs, multiple border crossings, limited connectivity, and vulnerability to global shocks. Ministerial coordination on the margins of WTO Ministerial Conferences provides a critical opportunity for LLDCs to articulate shared priorities, review progress under the Awaza Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2024–2034, and influence WTO outcomes that directly affect their integration into global trade.
At a time of heightened systemic strain on the multilateral trading system, the MC14 Ministerial Meeting of LLDCs offers a platform to reaffirm the importance of an inclusive and development-oriented WTO. It allows LLDCs, among the most structurally vulnerable WTO Members, to provide guidance on how to ensure that their specific trade-related challenges are adequately reflected in WTO reform processes.
At MC14, LLDC Ministers will gather to adopt a unified Ministerial Declaration and provide strategic guidance on issues of central importance to LLDCs, including LLDC trade and development needs, trade facilitation and transit, WTO reform, Aid for Trade, and interests in services and digital trade. The meeting will involve a brief opening ceremony, General Debate, and adoption of the LLDC Ministerial Declaration.
With MC14 taking place in Yaoundé, the conference offers a timely moment to elevate LLDC priorities at a WTO Ministerial hosted on the African continent, particularly significant given that half of the LLDCs are African countries. The meeting offers an important political moment to signal that addressing LLDC-specific challenges remains central to the credibility and development dimension of the multilateral trading system.
Documents
Statements
Upcoming Meetings
