This highlights the importance of viewing graduation as the first milestone in a marathon of development rather than the winning post in a race to escape LDC status,1 and of focusing primarily on longer-term development processes rather than on the technicalities of the graduation criteria. While several countries close to the graduation thresholds have adopted graduation as a major national goal, as discussed in chapter 2, it is important that this is seen only as an initial step. The country’s development process continues indefinitely beyond this point, and its subsequent success depends critically on the foundations built in the course of graduation.