The Landlocked Gather in Turkmenistan to Confront an Age-old Conundrum
The Central Asian region is unique in the world for being entirely landlocked, and so it was of little surprise that most of the region's leaders attended the opening of the recent U.N. Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, ongoing in the resort town of Awaza, Turkmenistan, from August 5-8.
On August 5, the presidents of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic Adylbek Kasymaliev met to discuss areas of regional cooperation and in preparation for the seventh Consultative Meeting of Central Asian Leaders, which is scheduled to take place in September in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Per the United Nations, Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) lack territorial access to the sea and are thus isolated from world markets, the resulting high trade costs constrain development:
Without direct access to coastal ports, landlocked developing countries must rely on transit countries to connect them with international markets. This can lead to increased transportation trade costs, delays in the movement of goods, and susceptibility to political and economic instability in transit countries. These challenges often result in reduced foreign direct investment, limited export opportunities, and slower economic growth.
So, on top of challenges faced by all developing countries, LLDCs also face substantially increased costs for trade and transport because of their geographic location. On average, LLDCs pay more than double their neighbours in transport costs to send and receive merchandise from overseas markets.
In many cases, LLDCs' transit neighbours are themselves developing countries and often face similar economic challenges. Therefore, little trade typically occurs between LLDCs and their neighbours.
LLDCs include: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, North Macedonia, Paraguay, Moldova, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The first two U.N. Conferences on Landlocked Developing Countries were held in 2003, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and 2014 in Vienna, Austria. The Almaty Ministerial Declaration, which came out of the 2003 meeting, highlighted the marginalization of landlocked countries from international trade and the high barriers to greater participation. 'Trade and transport are inextricably linked. Transport costs are a key determinant of international trade competitiveness,' the declaration noted. While the declaration stated that the 'primary responsibility for establishing effective transit systems rests with the landlocked and transit developing countries' themselves, it nevertheless committed to minimizing these states' marginalization and furthering their development.
More than 20 years on, it remains true that 'trade and transport are inextricably linked.'
The current conference is structured around the Awaza Programme of Action (APoA) for 2024-2034, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2024. The APoA noted that 'mixed progress was made in the implementation of the six priority areas of the Vienna Programme of Action for Landlocked Developing Countries for the Decade 2014-2024.' Among the many challenges not envisioned in the 2014 Vienna PoA were the COVID-19 pandemic, the present geopolitical strife, which has had significant economic impacts, and the scale of consequences of climate change. It further noted concern 'that landlocked developing countries have made very limited progress towards achieving structural transformation.' The APoA has remained concerningly concentrated in natural resource extraction and a high number of LLDCs are 'in debt distress or at a high risk of it.'
The APoA set out five priority areas: 1) structural transformation and science, technology and innovation; 2) trade, trade facilitation and regional integration; 3) transit, transport and connectivity; 4) enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change and disasters; and 5) means of implementation. The ongoing conference's agenda mirrors the priority list, with high-level roundtables, but also forums for the private sector, civil society, youth, parliamentarians, and others, as well as a full roster of side events.
At the opening of the Awaza conference, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proclaimed that 'Geography should never define destiny.'
'Despite representing 7 per cent of the world's population, LLDCs account for just over one per cent of the global economy and trade – a stark example of deep inequalities that perpetuate marginalization,' he said, adding, 'These inequalities are not inevitable.'
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in his remarks during the conference's opening, stated that limited connectivity remained a core challenge, one exacerbated 'by conflicts, economic sanctions, supply chain disruptions and rising global mistrust.'
Uzbek President Shavkat Miriyoyev pointed to further difficulties: 'high tariffs, limited capacity of transport corridors and infrastructure, and dependence on the customs and transit policies of other states.'
'The agenda that brings us together today touches upon a fundamental issue – the issue of justice,' Mirziyoyev said. 'It is about having the opportunity for landlocked countries to participate in the global economy on an equal footing.'
Mirziyoyev also highlighted the 'achievement of a qualitatively new level of trust and partnership in Central Asia,' arguing that it 'has provided a powerful impetus for dynamic transformations.'
Chatter about trade and transit has intensified in recent years, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption of global trade. But no less key are the geopolitical and economic consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Central Asian states whose main trade corridors have long been oriented northward, following old Soviet pathways. Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war also provided considerable motivation for deepening ongoing efforts toward Central Asian regionalism in more than symbolic fashion. Meanwhile, trade and transit corridor proposals such as the Middle Corridor and the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway have received intense attention. Although these proposals have existed in some form for decades and face considerable challenges still, there has been measurable progress made at last toward actualizing them.
'We are moving from the landlocked to the landlinked future,' Tokayev said in his remarks. 'We witness that Central Asia has transformed into the region of mutually beneficial interaction with dynamically developing trade, investment, transport, communication potential, as well as sustainable resource management.'
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