The Qatari official noted that Doha’s financial contributions to the United Nations has exceeded $500 million over the past decade.

Qatar’s partnership with the United Nations is the “cornerstone” of Doha’s foreign policy, a top Qatari official told Doha News on Sunday.

Speaking at the Fifth UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5), Qatar’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Dr. Majed Al-Ansari said: “Our support for multilateral international action has always been very strong because of our belief in the communal and the cooperation between international players in order to achieve international goals.”

Dr. Al-Ansari described the event in Doha as one of the biggest in LDC history.

“We have seen participation from not only from heads of state, prime ministers, the ministers of different countries, but also from NGO’s, private sector, youth and different entities that are all aiming to put the Doha Plan of Action into operation,” he said.

During the conference, which is held every 10 years, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani unveiled a $60 million contribution to the Doha Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries (DPoA).

Dr. Al-Ansari noted that Qatar’s financial support to the UN has increased over the past decade and has since surpassed $500 million.

On Saturday, the Gulf state also inaugurated the UN House in Lusail, a building that will house key institutions linked to the intergovernmental organisation.

“We are also now through the establishment of the UN House here in Qatar, aiming to streamline the operations of the UN institutions that are housed here in Qatar,” the Qatari official said.

Commenting on the LDC5, Dr. Al-Ansari said the event “is a very good example of how the Qatari partnership with the Un  can help accomplish good internationally.”

“As the Secretary general said today in his speech, the practical guide of the plan of action is now to be implemented through the discussions that will take place in the round tables and in the different tracks during the conference,” Dr. Al-Ansari said.

Adopted last year, the DPOA is an agreement aimed at bringing the 46 most vulnerable countries back under the global spotlight.

In 1981, France was the first country to ever host the UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries, where it established the Programme of Action.

Qatar’s decade-long initiative aims at “transforming the economies of the least developed countries towards self-sustained development”.

In one part of the agreement, Qatar also called for “greater” global action to address challenges affecting least developed countries, placing special focus on the external debt burden on the targeted nations.

Officials in Qatar will hold discussions throughout the week on ways to best implement the DPoA, with numerous agreements expected to be signed on the matter.

During his opening address, Sheikh Tamim took aim at the divided approach in addressing humanitarian situations globally, noting that there is “a structural issue” in doing so.

“There is no doubt that it is basically a structural issue related to the absence of justice in the correlation between the advanced industrial centers and the peripheries of our world, but it is also a matter of rational economic development policies in the least developed countries,” the Qatari leader said.