PRESS CONFERENCE BY ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES

Small island States themselves must accept primary responsibility for sustainable development, Ambassador Tuiloma Neroni Slade (Samoa), Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told correspondents this morning at a Headquarters press conference. That, he said, was a fundamental element of the Barbados Programme of Action.

Speaking about prospects for the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly on the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action, adopted in 1994 by the Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Ambassador Slade was joined by JoAnne DiSano, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development.

Small island States had found that developing their own institutional strengths, and building on regional arrangements, was a sensible way to maximize resources and minimize efforts, waste and duplication, he said.

The small island developing States were small, developing nations from the Caribbean, Africa, the Mediterranean and South China Seas, and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Because they were small countries that were not normally represented in, and did not have access to, the councils of the world, an ad hoc body, the AOSIS, had been established. That body consisted of 43 small island countries, 36 of which were Member States of the United Nations. They constituted over 19 per cent of the membership of the United Nations and about 26 per cent of developing countries.

The Barbados Programme of Action had resulted as a necessary growth of the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, he said. It reflected the need for a balance between growth and environmental protection, and attempted to translate into action the ideals of the Earth Summit. The priorities identified in the Barbados Programme of Action remained as relevant today as they had been when they were adopted. The issues therein ranged from the environment to loss of biodiversity, and from climate change to the more contemporary issues of trade, energy use, transportation and communication. None of those countries had the capacities or resources to deal with global issues affecting the marine area or the resources of the sea. Also, they could not be expected to deal with the problems of global climate change.

It was too simple and too easy to fashion programmes of action, but far more difficult to gather the strength and will to implement them, he said. That was why the review was necessary. What were being sought during the special session were renewed energy and commitment and the strengthening of implementation approach. Small island States

AOSIS Press Conference - 2 - 23 September 1999

wanted to tell the United Nations system to bear in mind the smallness of those countries and the relative shortage of human resources there. There was a need for coordination of United Nations efforts to implement the Programme of Action.

Small island States wanted to strengthen partnership between themselves and the international community, he added. The island countries were natural and exotic markets for the rest of the world. The international community should accept that policies on access to those tourism areas should come from within and not from outside. They wanted the world community to help them strengthen regional mechanisms.

Ms. DiSano recalled that, five years ago, world leaders had met in Barbados to address the unique challenges facing small island nations. The holding of that conference had been a recognition that small islands were vulnerable and in need of assistance in terms of their ecological and economic situation. Since then, small island developing States had made great efforts to tackle their special vulnerabilities. They had been at the forefront of dealing with such issues as climate change.

Many of those nations, she continued, had developed national sustainable development strategies, including sectoral programmes of action. They had formed high-level policy-making bodies, and developed institutions to improve environmental protection and resource management. They had also reviewed their legislation and regulatory regimes with the assistance of other countries, and engaged in public- awareness programmes.

Yet, despite what had been done, there were still major constraints, she said. They were constrained by limited land resources, their size in terms of population, small labour force, and the difficulty of keeping their brainpower in the small islands to generate innovative solutions to problems. They were also constrained by the inadequacy of institutional structures and administrative capacity. In addition, they had been hit by numerous natural disasters. Issues that still needed to be addressed included the continued deterioration of the marine environment, problems with freshwater availability and quality, and insufficient financial resources. The special session was an attempt to reaffirm, re-identify and revitalize the United Nations commitment to deal with those issues.

Asked about trade arrangements concerning the banana industry, Ambassador Slade said that the banana issue was, for Caribbean small island States, an element of the larger problem of globalization and trade liberalization. It reflected the fact that such States had been relying on preferential and differential trade treatment. The banana trade showed the erosion of that preferential treatment.

It raised in a direct way, he continued, the effects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) arrangements on small countries. The

AOSIS Press Conference - 3 - 23 September 1999

negotiations had been done on the basis of the small countries’ desire to ensure, if possible, the continuation of preferential treatment. Such treatment was essential to their economic livelihood because, as had been recognized at Rio and Barbados, small island States were economically vulnerable. It was also essential because those nations had had no access to the negotiations, since many of them were not in the WTO. Furthermore, trade law was a highly specialized field, and small island States might not have the necessary human resources, experience and expertise to defend their interests.

* *** *