This Briefing Paper analyses the problems facing developing country (LDC) commodity exporters. It outlines progress on the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC), which was adopted in 1976 at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD IV), and its main alternatives. The paper notes that the IPC has made little progress since its inception. Despite the extension and liberalisation of compensatory financing, which is seen as a means to stabilise revenues directly, this financing still only covers a modest part of LDCs' terms of trade losses.