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LLDCs face several development challenges linked tolandlockedness including long distances to the nearest seaports, remoteness from markets, additional bordercrossings, inadequate physical infrastructure, and logisticaland institutional bottlenecks. These challengessubstantially increase the transport and transit costs forLLDCs, eroding their competitive edge and trade volumes.Furthermore, LLDCs’ trade unavoidably relies on theirtransit neighbours, many of which are themselvesdeveloping countries, often of broadly similar economicstructure and beset by similar scarcities of resources andlimited capacities.A 2013 UN-OHRLLS study (Development Economics ofLandlockedness), looking at around 150 countries, includingLLDCs and coastal countries over the period 1980-2010,revealed that LLDCs’ trade was just 61% of the tradevolume of coastal countries. Transport costs for LLDCs were45% higher than the representative coastal economy. As aresult, LLDCs continue to be marginalized in world trade, astheir exports account for just 1.2% of global exports.Overall, the level of development in LLDCs is about 20%lower than what it would be had they not been landlocked,other things being equal. Their lack of territorial access tothe sea and their remoteness and isolation from worldmarkets, high transit costs and dependence on transitFigure 6-2. Overlap of three groups of countriescountries impose serious constraints on their socioeconomicdevelopment.LLDCs typically have low economic growth rates and areoften heavily dependent on a very limited number ofcommodities for their export earnings. However, LLDCsare a heterogeneous group. Even though they facesimilar challenges linked to landlockedness, the 16LLDCs out of 32 that are also classified as LDCs (seeFigure 6-2) face even greater challenges. Small islanddeveloping States (SIDS) were recognized as a distinctgroup of developing countries facing specific social,economic and environmental vulnerabilities at theUnited Nations Conference on Environment andDevelopment (UNCED) in 1992, and there has been aglobal consensus on this ever since. This recognition wasmade specifically in the context of Agenda 21, whichfound that their small size, limited resources,geographic dispersion and isolation from internationalmarkets place them at a disadvantage economically andlimit economies of scale 486 . Their challenges were alsorecognized at the first Global Conference on SIDS inBarbados in 1994, the second in Mauritius in 2005, andthe Third International Conference on SIDS in Samoa in2014. Out of 38 SIDS, 9 are also LDCs (see Figure 6-2).Source: Author’s elaboration on the basis of UN OHRLLS list of countries105