Once-in-a-decade push for the ‘locked out’: Global leaders set for landmark UN conference in Turkmenistan.
Lacking access to open seas, landlocked countries must rely on other nations for imports and exports. Pictured here, a woman constructs a house in Mongolia. In early August, Heads of State, ministers, investors and grassroots leaders will gather in Awaza on Turkmenistan’s Caspian coast for once-in-a-decade UN conference aiming to rewire the global system in support of 32 landlocked developing countries whose economies are often “locked out” of opportunity due to their lack of access to the sea. Backed by the new Awaza Programme of Action, the Third UN Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries or LLDC3 will push for freer transit, smarter trade corridors, stronger economic resilience and fresh financing to lift development prospects for the 570 million people living in those countries. For landlocked nations, geography has long dictated destiny. Trade costs are up to 74 per cent higher than the global average and it can take twice as long to move goods across borders compared to co...