By Alina Haddad
20 May 2008 [MediaGlobal]: The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) addressed a portion of its sixteenth session to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Held last week at the UN Secretariat in New York, discussions focused on the challenges and opportunities facing some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. Distinguished representatives of the international community participated in conferences, panels and debates devoted to the discussion of the SIDS’s economic challenges and environmental vulnerabilities.
The day started with an official session opened by Chair Francis Nhema, CSD Minister of Environment and Tourism. Following, Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, underscored the day’s importance and set forth the issues at hand—among them agriculture, rural development, land, drought and desertification.
“Considering the thematic cluster within the context of the vulnerabilities of SIDS sharpens our sense of how timely and urgent these issues are. For SIDS, their vulnerability remains their fundamental concern,” Zukang said. He attributed SIDS’s susceptibility to external economic influences. SIDS struggle economically because of limited land size, population, and resource bases. Additionally, their lack of human and institutional capacities have weakened their international competitiveness and marginalized their economies in international trade.
“Of equal concern is the vulnerability of SIDS to environmental factors, given their ecological fragility and significant exposure to the damaging effects of climate change,” continued Mr. Zukang. Climate change has resulted in rising sea-levels, causing SIDS to slowly lose their limited land area, which further strains land management and agriculture. Coastal warming has also bleached coral reefs. Without reefs, fish nurseries disappear and coastal areas, where the majority of SIDS populations live, may erode away.
Zukang asserted that environmental and economic challenges have lowered agricultural productivity of the SIDS. In turn, increased instability in agricultural exports and dependence on food imports is threatening their food security.
Cheick Sidi Diarra, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, echoed the concerns set forth by Zukang and expanded on small islands’ vulnerability. Not only are SIDS most likely to have natural disasters because of their geography, but SIDS are also the “most vulnerable to disasters” because they lack economic resilience, he explained.
Diarra also addressed the issue of land. He expressed concerns about land competition, drought, degradation, limited resources, and desertification, warning that development capacities are necessary to strengthen land management, otherwise the result will be a food crisis. He asserted that we must “strive to raise the voice of SIDS” because they have the least means in responding to these complex problems that threaten their existence.
Subsequent to Diarra’s presentation, the Security-General’s report was introduced. The report stated that land resources are becoming more limited because rising populations create a greater demand. While many populations depend on agriculture for income, the agricultural industry has been declining for two decades. The report also found SIDS to suffer from closed economies, limited capacities, inadequate physical structures, a lack of financial resources, susceptibility to natural disasters and insufficient access to information technology.
The Report provided solutions to the plethora of SIDS challenges. It suggested integrated land programs incorporating women and youth, promoting the linkages of agriculture and tourism, and introducing training capacities.
After the presentations by the UN Council of Sustainable Development (CSD), states had the opportunity to respond and debate. The first speaker was Byron Blake, Ambassador to the Permanent Mission of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN, who spoke on behalf of the Group of 77 and China. Group of 77 is the largest nongovernmental organization of developing states, with a membership of 130, providing means for countries of the South to articulate and promote their collective economic interests within the UN. A number of its members are SIDS. In their presentation, they reiterated the main issues stunting the survival and economic stability of SIDS. Furthermore, they expressed concern over the state of implementation for the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) and the Mauritius Strategy for Implementation (MPI), questioning the effectiveness of these strategies and action plans, as well as the place of SIDS on the international agenda.
In his closing statement, Blake said, “It is the understanding of the Group of 77 and China that in agreeing to hold meetings of SIDS Day and the water and sanitation review in parallel during this session, that this will not constitute the establishment of a precedent for the future. After 14 years and in the context of the crises impacting the development of SIDS, we must act now to ensure that this does not become a SIDS Remembrance Day.”