Small island developing states summit aims for alliances

The UN’s Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), in Apia, Samoa, on 1-4 September, will aim to identify the unique needs andvulnerabilities of island nations and opportunities for international support.

“The challenges facing SIDS are interlinked and cannot be tackled in silo or by one country alone,” says conference secretary-general Wu Hongbo. “This calls for collaboration and partnerships, with active engagement by all stakeholders, governmental and non-governmental.”

The conference will focus on critical areas where new global partnerships are needed, including climate change, oceans, waste, sustainable tourism and disaster risk reduction. Various voluntary commitments have already been announced. These include the creation of a Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, which is intended to tackle the challenges of access to affordable energy, energy security and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Once fully operational, which is due to happen by 2018, the centre will fall under the remit of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). “The centre will assist energy industries in developing countries in taking advantage of growing sustainable energy market opportunities and provide a platform to promote South-South and North-South knowledge and technology transfer,” says UNIDO renewable energy expert, Martin Lugmayr.

Other new collaborative projects include the University Consortium of Small Island States, which, with the Spanish government and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, announced plans to develop a degree in sustainable development delivered internationally through an online portal. In addition, six countries and various organisations have announced support for the Coral Triangle Initiative that will protect the region, which is home to the highest coral diversity in the world.Maintaining ocean health will be a centrepiece of the conference, according to Milan Meetarbhan, Mauritius’ ambassador to the UN, who says this should lead to the development of a global strategy for a healthy ocean economy. “Given [the ocean’s] crucial importance to the international community and to SIDS in particular, the Samoa summit should consider making a clear recommendation in favour of a stand-alone Sustainable Development Goal on the oceans,” Meetarbhan says. The conference will echo and reinforce targets likely to be outlined in the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals (a draft of which was released this week), as many of the topics addressed have global significance, says Wu. It will also contribute to an elaboration of the post-2015 UN development agenda, he adds. “In particular, [this will be] through discussions on climate change, where SIDS’ experiences are providing both an example of the devastating impacts and the outcomes of efforts to fight the phenomenon,” he says.

This will be the first SIDS conference in the Pacific. The inaugural conference was held in Barbados in 1994 and resulted in the Declaration of Barbados. This officially recognised the sustainable development needs of SIDS and called for regional and international support to deliver these. The second conference, held in Mauritius in 2005, concluded with the Mauritius Strategy, a further implementation of the Barbados plan with emphasis on the vulnerability of island nations. Wu said the outcome document for this year’s conference will outline priorities for all SIDS and provide a road map for future action to address sustainability priorities. > Link to the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States More

DESA News: Renewing Focus on Sustainable Islands

Published on Apr 30, 201 4 • "Many of the challenges facing Small Island Developing States are shared by the international community, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, oceans and seas, disasters [...]," said UN DESA's Under-Secretary-General and Conference Secretary-General Wu Hongbo, as preparations accelerate ahead of the UN Conference on Small Island Developing States in Samoa on 1 -4 September. DESA News also spoke with some of the conference bureau members who shared their hopes for this major event.

In the video [in order of appearance]: - Ali'ioaiga Feturi Alisaia, Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations - Milan J N Meetarghan, Permanent Representative of Mauritius - Ronald Jumeau, the Roving Ambassador of Seychelles for Climate Change and Small Island Developing States - Karen Tan, Permanent Representative of Singapore - Phillip Taula, Deputy Permanent Representative of New Zealand

Read the DESA News feature article: http://bit.ly/1 hTrCki

For information on the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States: http://www.sids2014.org/

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Seychelles Climate Change Ambassador Jumeau at "Sustainability Conference

Ambassador Ronny Jumeau said, "Each island has it's own specificity but common problems we all face are climate change, sea level rise, problem with coral reefs, diminishing fisheries. We have food security problems, especially in low lying islands. You have water security problems on islands. We have all sorts of problems that are similar because we are islands."

Jumeau continued on to say the common mistake islands make is looking towards bigger countries for help instead of helping one another. He said the days of reaching out with a begging bowl are over and islands should come out and say "come help us help ourselves" instead. With Guam having a university and sustainability center, Jumeau added that we already have knowledge we can share.

"We are all trying to find solutions and very often one mistake we made over the many years, we tend to look towards bigger countries because they're richer or more powerful for the solutions but they don't think like us. The best thing is for us to talk before we reach out so we find out what we want to do on our islands and how do we solve these problems," he said.

Jumeau advised Guam to engage the whole community in educating ourselves about climate change because only a few things about climate change is new. He expained that it's great to have the youth interested but also to look towards our elders who have already been through many natural disasters and have more knowledge about our island.

 

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Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States

2014 - International Year Of Small Island Developing States

The Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States will be held from 1 to 4 September 2014 in Apia, Samoa, to be preceded by activities related to the conference from 28 to 30 August 2014, also in Apia, Samoa. It will focus the world’s attention on a group of countries that remain a special case for sustainable development in view of their unique and particular vulnerabilities.

The Conference will seek to achieve the following objectives:

1. assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation;
2. seek a renewed political commitment by focusing on practical and pragmatic actions for further implementation;
3. identify new and emerging challenges and opportunities for the sustainable development of SIDS and means of addressing them; and
4. identify priorities for the sustainable development of SIDS to be considered in the elaboration of the post-2015 UN development agenda.

The United Nations General Assembly resolution called for "a concise, focused, forward-looking and action-oriented political document." The small island developing States have also expressed their desire to highlight successful partnerships and areas of innovation.

Preparatory Process

The preparations for this important Conference are currently underway, starting with a robust, SIDS-directed, multi-stakeholder national preparatory process. The national preparations feed into regional meetings in July of 2013, followed by an inter-regional preparatory meeting.

More information on the Preparatory Process

Secretariat

A dedicated Secretariat is responsible for coordinating and facilitating inputs to the preparatory process from all UN bodies. In November 2012, the UN Secretary-General nominated Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, as the Secretary-General for the Third International Conference on SIDS. [Read more]

The Conference Secretariat is housed in the UN DESA, supported by the Prime Minister of the Independent State of Samoa. As the host country, Samoa is leading the logistical preparations on the ground.

Contact the Secretariat: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/about.html

 

 

© 2014