Vice President Alupo in Doha for UN Least Developed Countries Conference

Vice President Jessica Alupo flew to Doha, Qatar to attend the United Nations five-day fifth conference on the least developed countries.

The Vice President, who arrived on Saturday, was received at Hamad International Airport by Uganda's ambassador to Qatar, Steven Chemoiko Chebrot, and other embassy officials.

The conference which is convened every 10 years, aims to generate international attention and action in addressing the challenges of poverty and hunger in the world. Other themes target the achievement of Universal Education, promotion of gender equality and empowerment, improvement of maternal health, and reduction of child mortality. 

Other issues that Doha Conference will focus on include combating different diseases, protecting nature as well as building synergies as enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals of 2000. Most of these challenges are prevalent in the least developed countries most of which are categorized lowly on the UN Human Development Index.

A country's resilience to these human development challenges and compatibility with sustainable development goals is the measure that determines the country's position on the index. A country is categorized either as being high, medium, or low on the human development index. Uganda is slightly below the medium human development index as it stands at around 0.53 HDI as of 2021, which is an improvement from the original position of 0.329 HDI recorded by 1990.

Mauritius, Egypt, Seychelles, Libya, and South Africa whose human development index is posted at between 0.700-0.799 are categorized as High on the HDI. While Botswana, Morocco, Ghana, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Equatorial Guinea are in the medium human development index scoring between 0.550-0.699 HDI. India is also in this category while the rest of Africa is in a low category.

Alupo will hold side meetings with a number of delegations including bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister of the State of Qatar, His Excellence Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, as well as meetings with other senior officials from Qatar Investment and Business Associations.

Uganda's Foreign Minister, General Abubakar Jeje Odong will also attend the conference and as well hold side meetings with his counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who is the State of Qatar Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

The conference is expected to make a declaration designed to address challenges that impede the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in the least developed countries.