LDC News Service is a sister-organisation of LDC Watch, but operates independently. A member of the LDC Watch Steering Committee is a member of the LDC News Service International Steering Committee.
LDC Watch is a global alliance of national, regional and international civil society organisations (CSOs), networks and movements based in the LDCs and supported by civil society from development-partner countries. It was founded in 2002 soon after the third UN Conference on LDCs held in Brussels in 2001.
It acts as a coordinating body for LDC civil society to advocate, lobby, campaign and network in a multi-stakeholder framework, engaging with the UN, LDCs’ and their development partner governments, as a partner and a pressure group for pro-poor policies to be implemented in the LDCs.
Its aim is to enhance the LDC CSOs’ capacity to advocate, lobby, campaign and network for the implementation of the measures to support LDC civil society development and promote increased attention and delivery of LDCs’ specific requirements in the global development processes, including the Istanbul Programme of Action, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development.
LDC Watch is managed by a Steering Committee consisting of members from LDC CSOs in Nepal, Cambodia, Senegal, Ethiopia and its development partner in Belgium, as well as members of Jubilee South, Social Watch and the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE). It is coordinated by an International Secretariat based in Nepal, with support from the European Co-ordination Office in Belgium and three regional focal points in Senegal, Ethiopia and Cambodia.
In 2011 LDC Watch was responsible for coordinating the Civil Society Forum at the fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries. LDC News Service was established as a result of the Conference.