UNCTAD says small group of countries are experiencing strong growth. - The broadly positive findings from UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) on the extraordinary growth of less advanced countries (LACs) from 2005 to 2006 are belied by the situation in terms of distribution. The unprecedented growth in LACs as a whole is only true for the oil exporting countries (Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Chad, Timor-Leste (East Timor) and Yemen) and minerals exporters (Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia), which have taken advantage of the hike in raw material prices. This small group of countries accounts for 66% of the growth in LACs' exports and the situation for the other LACs is of great concern: 37 of them even experienced an alarming decline between 2003 and 2006, explains UNCTAD's 2008 report on the less advanced nations. This situation can be put down to their strong reliance on food imports, whose prices have risen sharply. In 2005-2006, LACs imported US$14.6 billion worth of food, equivalent to 4.4% of their GDP. LAC food imports rose 72% from 2002 and 2006 and UNCTAD says this rise is forecast to continue in 2008. LAC growth has had little impact on the reduction of poverty. In 2005, 36% of the population of the group of LACs lived in extreme poverty on less than a dollar a day, and 76% on less than two dollars a day. It is true that the proportion of the population living in poverty is slowly diminishing but at the same time, more people were subsisting on less than a dollar or less than two dollars in 2005 than in 2000, explains UNCTAD, noting that inequality is growing in LACs, whose populations therefore remain highly dependent on financial aid from developed countries. Development aid hit a historic high of US$ 28 billion in 2006. (I.L. /transl.: fl)