United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said yesterday that the least developed countries are becoming "stuck" in the face of multiple global crises, being "unable" to keep up with the nations with more resources.

"The least developed countries are getting stuck in the middle of a rising tide of crisis, uncertainty, climate chaos and profound global injustice. They are unable to keep up with the dizzying pace of technological change," said Guterres at the 5th United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC5), which runs until Thursday in Doha, Qatar.

Guterres, quoted by Lusa, called the global financial system biased, saying it was "designed by rich countries for the benefit of rich countries".

"The least developed countries face interest rates that can be up to eight times higher than developed countries. And it's only getting worse," said the Secretary General.

According to Guterres, 25 developing economies are today "spending more than 20% of their income not on building schools, feeding the population or increasing opportunities for women and girls, but only on paying off debt".

The UN Secretary-General stressed that rich countries "have no more excuses" and "the time has come" to fulfill their commitment to provide the least developed countries with between 0.15% and 0.20% of their total income for development assistance.

Leaders and representatives from 33 African countries, 12 Asia-Pacific countries and Haiti are meeting, five decades after the United Nations (UN) created the Least Developed Countries (LDC) category to provide special international support to its most vulnerable and disadvantaged members.

An action plan for these countries was adopted at the UN General Assembly last year.

However, no major financial pledges are expected to be made at the Doha Summit, which has been postponed twice due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Afghanistan and Myanmar are not present, as their governments are not recognized by UN members.