The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in its resolution A/RES/72/205 adopted on 20 December 2017, decided “to hold a one-off one-day informal interactive dialogue of the General Assembly on commodity markets during the first half of 2019 to review world commodity trends and prospects, particularly in commodity-dependent countries”.

The UNGA acknowledges that commodity-dependent developing countries face specific structural constraints to international trade and economic diversification.?As price takers, commodity-dependent developing countries are exposed to the vagaries of international commodity markets, which are particularly volatile. As a result, export revenues of these countries follow commodity price cycles – increasing during commodity price booms and collapsing during downturns. Many commodity-dependent developing countries are currently experiencing hardship due largely to a generalized commodity price downturn.

Most commodities are characterized by long value chains, from production to final consumption through stages such as transportation, transformation, marketing, and final use. Commodity-dependent developing countries are mostly only active at the low-value entry level of the value chain, the rest being generally controlled by big multinational companies. As a result, many commodity-dependent developing countries get a tiny share of the value of the final good derived from the primary commodity that they produce. This is the case with agricultural commodities where, for example, a coffee producer may get as little as less than 3 per cent of the value of a cup of coffee in consumer markets.

The picture for minerals is similar. In many African countries for example, most mining contracts were negotiated in the 1980s and 1990s. During this period, low commodity prices and high political risks discouraged foreign investments in the mining sector,?limiting the negotiating power of these countries. As a result, until now, many mining operations in the continent are governed by contracts that allocate to host countries as little as 3?percent of the total value of production in tax revenues.

Commodity production and exports are critical for commodity-dependent developing countries, in particular, their capacity to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Commodity-dependent developing countries continue to be characterized by low industrialization and diversification of their economies and weak human and physical productive infrastructure, leading to slow and erratic growth and development. Therefore, low commodity prices as well as contracts that drastically limit the revenues accruing to host countries represent a major constraint to commodity-dependent developing countries in their efforts to improve the wellbeing of their populations and reducing inequality.

The one-day informal interactive dialogue, which will take place on 15 May, will consist of an opening segment, two interactive panels and, one closing segment. The panelists will include renowned experts, high-level government officials and representatives from the private sector and international financial institutions, among others.