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Exactly ten years after the Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries in Brussels, the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries was held in Istanbul from 9-13 May 2011.

The Conference adopted the , along with the . 

In the introduction to the Programme of Action, Member States noted that 

...more than 75 per cent of the least developed countries¡¯ population still live in poverty. It is a matter of deep concern to the international community that only three countries have graduated out of this category so far in the past three decades."

In remarks to the media at the opening of the Istanbul Conference, former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said:

...our aim is to reduce significantly the number of these LDCs. They should be able to graduate from LDC status. So again, it is very sad that we are going through this global economic crisis. It is always the Least Developed Countries, the poorest countries, whose economies, and their living status, has always been affected very much negatively, because, while this economic crisis happened in the developed world, they have capacity to stimulate their domestic economies. But these least developed countries, they do not have any means, any capacity. Therefore, since the beginning of this economic crisis I have been urging at the G-20 summit meetings, that I would strongly welcome and urge the G-20 leaders, by whatever means possible, to stimulate their economies, recover the global economy, but at the same time never to lose sight of the challenges of poor countries."

Priority areas for action listed in the Programme of Action were: productive capacity (infrastructure, energy, science, technology and innovation, private sector development); agriculture, food security and rural development; trade; commodities; human and social development (education and training, population and primary health, youth development, shelter, water and sanitation, gender equality and empowerment of women, social protection); multiple crises and other emerging challenges (economic shocks, climate change and environmental sustainability, disaster risk reduction); mobilizing financial resources for development and capacity-building (domestic resource mobilization, official development assistance, external debt, foreign direct investment, remittances); and good governance at all levels.

The Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-V) will be held in Doha in January 2022.