The United Nation Development Program (UNDP) here Wednesday recommended several steps to combat poverty in Asia-Pacific Least Developed Countries, an official said.

Hafiz Pasha, the UN assistant Secretary-General and Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific of the UNDP, said at a regional meeting on the millennium development goals that among the recommendations were the facilitation of duty-and-quota-free market access, especially by introducing preferential schemes for Asia-Pacific Least Developed Countries (LDCs), simplifying World Trade Organization accession process, and supporting trade-related infrastructure and human resource development.

Aid and debt relief, he said, are still disproportionately low for Asia-Pacific LDCs, although these countries are home to two fifths of the global LDCs population.

The UNDP recommended for a win-win situation, including expansion of coverage of debt relief to more severely indebted countries, and nearly tripling official development assistance over 2002 levels, from less than 4 billion US dollars to more than 12 billion dollars by 2006, Pasha said.

He urged that debt sustainability be redefined as reaching the Millennium Development Goals without a new debt overhang.

Source: Xinhua