Special Session - Inclusive Urban Resilience, Blue Economy and Sustainable Tourism in SIDS (WUF13)

Good afternoon, everybody.
Please, we are about to start, so please take your seat if you want to stay in this session.
Welcome to the special session on inclusive urban resilience, blue economy and sustainable tourism in seats.
So I'm happy to welcome in this session and we will start with an introductory remarks from the Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific of UN Habitat, miss Kazuo Siga, you have the floor.
Come, please welcome her with a round of applause.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Thank you, Louie.
Good afternoon.
Distinguished ministers, mayors, speakers, partners, and ladies and gentlemen, and welcome thank you for joining this important session on inclusive urban resilience, rural economy, and sustainable tourism in seats.
I am Cask Iraki, the Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific at UN Habitat.
It's my pleasure to open today's discussion and to welcome representatives and partners from across small island developing states and beyond.
This session is timely as it builds on the momentum and outcomes of the Seventh Pacific Urban Forum held two months ago in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where governments, development partners, communities, and regional organizations came together to advance practical solutions for inclusive, resilient, and sustainable urban development in the Pacific.
I thank the leadership of His Excellency, Bota Bomao, Minister of Housing and Urban Development of Papua New Guinea.
Seats on the front line of multiple and interconnected challenges, rising sea levels, coastal degradation, increasingly frequent climate related disasters, small scale economy, limited connectivity, pressure on limited land for housing and infrastructures.
These are deeply affecting communities, livelihoods, and urban systems.
And these challenges must be considered in the context of urbanization, which continues to accelerate across many island contexts.
Increasing demand for adequate housing, basic services, resilient infrastructure, and inclusive planning approaches.
As competition for land growth and public resources are repeatedly redirected towards disaster recovery and reconstruction, the need for integrated, long term, climate responsive, sustainable solutions becomes even more urgent.
However, seeds are not only places of vulnerability, they are also places of innovation, strong cultural identity, and the community leadership.
Surrounded by bro ocean, they are rich in beautiful nature, which attracts many tourists for ecotourism and support livelihoods and the bro economy.
Across regions, we are seeing important examples of locally led action, traditional governance systems, community centered planning, and nature based approaches, helping strengthen resilience while supporting livelihoods and sustainable development.
This is why today's discussion is so important.
We must continue exploring how climate adaptation, housing, land governance, blue economy opportunities, and sustainable tourism can be better connected through inclusive and integrated urban development strategies.
We must also ensure that resilience efforts are grounded in local realities, culturally informed approaches, and partnerships that include communities, local governments, regional organizations, development banks, academia, and the private sector.
No single institution, no single country can address these challenges at home.
UN habitat is committed to working with governments and partners from global, regional, to community levels to advance integrated, people centered and price based solutions that strengthen urban resilience while improving access to housing, basic services, security, and economic opportunity.
We also hope that the discussions and recommendations emerging from this session will contribute meaningfully to the outcome of the UFA team and help inform future commitments and actions toward Copan.
I would therefore like to sincerely thank all speakers and participants for contributing to this important dialogue.
I look forward to and the solution oriented discussion.
Thank you very much.
So ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome amazing performer, miss Gillian Ourecast theater of the Solomong Islands for the opening performance I I We I arrived with fat from my not from the sea alone, but from memory.
I am not one woman.
I am a sore line from Ang Thong Java, holding hands with Nahonara to the crowded ages of Lord House settlement, where stories arrive and refused to leave.
I am daughter of pits, sister of mango, mother of futures, not yet written.
From islands you may not find quickly on your map, but we have always known where we are.
I come from the Solomon Islands, where the ocean does not separate us, it connects us, where city grows, but now they are growing.
And so are the questions who belongs? Who decides and who is remembered where the water rises.
Yes.
He I.
The city called my name not y.
Loud, hungry, expanding.
So I came carrying stories in one hand and survival in the other.
But the city Hono did not know my language.
It spoke in words without memory, building without roots, B that did not touch me mission.
Here, home rises overnight from eat and home.
Here, rains and pork eat in bait.
Mummy, Mummy.
What is it? The one that has coming through a hole? $20, $20 rice and chicken.
We don't have space to sell our food.
The city doesn't have any space.
You draw your park and call it Palo.
B of the economy.
Who's blue.
Who's economy.
Honey.
Honey it is on onion on this W We have people You built two cities with your backs turned to me.
And now I am in the streets, your home.
Your home, your home.
In your plans.
I am not disaster.
I am response.
I am.
And I remember everything.
But listen.
We are not.
We are not only victims of your headlights.
We are architects of survival, women planting mangroves where walls have failed, youth mapping futures resisting forgotten, commodity rising before the waters to.
Baku, Wall even oprah participants.
We gather here to design cities.
So tell me, will your plans include us? The settlement you call informal, the people you call Oh, were you ever to the island people that have always lived with the one? I will not against this.
Who's.
What are you going to do? What's your purpose? What's your vision? I long.
The future is not something new.
It is something we built together.
Cities remember people before profits, oceans protected, not owned.
Tourisms that respect but not just photographs of cultural performs posing for fancy funding.
Do not instruct us.
Do not come to our islands to save us.
Come to stand with us.
Learn how resilience is not infrastructure alone.
I am the island.
I am not thinking.
I am sing.
The question is, will you rise with us I Wow.
Another round of applause, please.
Thank you, Gillian.
That was so stirring.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, friends, colleagues.
I am Carol Archer.
I will be your moderator for this afternoon sessions.
I want to first thank Madame Ishigaki, the UN Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific and her team for organizing this session, and also the UN Habitat team for allowing this to happen.
Thank you so very much.
Of course, Gillian from the Salmon Islands.
I've just met a new friend.
Another island girl.
Thank you for that wonderful presentation.
Now, small island developing states seeds across the world are the frontline of converging environmental, economic and social pressures.
We are these intensified by rapid and often unplanned urbanization, rising sea levels, coastal degradation, and increasingly frequent climate related disasters continue to threaten fragile settlements, while adequate housing shortages and outstretched basic service deepened inequalities and heightened exposure to risk.
Despite regional differences, Seeds share an urgent need for resilient, inclusive, and localized urban development, supported by strong multi stakeholder partnership and community engagement.
As competition for suitable land increases and the limited budgetary space is continuously affected by recurring disaster recovery cycles.
Integrated approaches to housing, land, infrastructure, and basic service can simultaneously strengthen the climate adaptation capacity of all and foster sustainable blue economy, tourism and people's livelihood.
The session this afternoon, we have some very distinguished speakers, who will help us to look at issues related to policies trade off faced by seeds, and showcase integrated approaches to strengthening urban resilience, climate, and housing, and also address inclusive urban development.
This session will highlight best practices from across the region, emphasize regional cooperation and multi stakeholder partnership.
It's going to be an engaging session, We will now have the QR code.
We ask that you scan the QR code and ask questions.
Please the QR code is here, yes.
And as the presenters speed, make their intervention, you can pose the question and there will be time during the session where we will pull from these questions that you have.
May I ask now for Honorable Minister Abdullah Muttalib to join me onstage.
Minister Abdullah comes to us from the island of the Maldives.
He's the Minister of Infrastructure, housing and urban Development.
Please make him welcome.
May I also invite Honorable Colin David Kroll, Minister of Housing from Guyana.
Minister, please welcome.
Minister of Honorable Corby Bomaro, Minister of Housing and Urban Development from Papua, New Guinea.
You're welcome, sir.
And Mr.
Mohammed Abudu, Director of Urban Planning and and use in the Ministry of Territorial Planning.
May I invite miss Gina Bond, Head of Environment and Climate Change Department of the Indian Ocean Commission.
Please welcome Gina and miss Jing Men Hong, Director of Water and Urban Development Sector, in the Urban Development Sector from the Asian Development Bank.
You're welcome.
And Mr.
Henk Orvink hopefully I got that right.
You're most welcome.
He's the Executive Director of the Global Commission on the economics of Water.
And finally, Mr.
Jesus Gonzalez Pérez from Spain, and we will be hearing from him.
Welcome.
Now, I'm going to ask The individuals, just two ministers to briefly give an overview representing small island developing states.
What are some of the challenges? How have you been able to overcome these challenges? Then we're going to go into some more pointed questions.
Minister Butale, we open the floor with you, please.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, everybody here coming to listen to us and the wonderful performance from the performer.
It was really entertaining and interesting.
I would like to start by saying that one of the key challenges we face is Moldice is about 1,200 islands in total, out of each 187 islands are inhabited.
It is scattered across the country in the Indian Ocean.
Some of the islands have less than 100 residents, more than 40 islands have less than 500 residents.
But by constitution, we have to provide all basic services, 24 hour electricity, water, sewage, up to grade education, health services.
All these things are mandatory by Constitution.
It's extremely expensive to maintain all 187 islands.
On top of that, the biggest challenge we face now is that almost all islands are facing soil erosion.
So Shore protection is one of the biggest most expensive challenge we face.
And without urgent necessary assistance from international partners, we find it difficult to adapt to this climate change, coastal protection, as well as economically to sustain all these islands.
So that is the challenge we now face, we have to overcome.
And in that regard, I hope international partners, the conferences like this can help us to showcase that the small island developing countries needs a different kind of adaptation measures and we need it urgently.
We need it without going through all these complicated procedures.
What I want to emphasize is Um, population consolidation is the main thing for us.
For Maldives, it it is mandatory.
We have to reduce the number of islands so that we can sustainably maintain, provide a safe shelter for our people.
So, please consider population consolidation as an adaptation measure and fund us accordingly because voluntary relocation, population consolidation and providing opportunities, services to the people is utmost important.
We need international donors, international development agencies to consider that It is an adaptation measure for us to consolidate populations so that we can provide safe, sustainable environment for them to live.
Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Motlem.
Thank you.
Minister Corll, I hope I'm pronouncing it.
Prul Proul.
My apologies.
Yes.
Help us to understand what is happening in your nation state, Guyana.
Certainly.
I'm from Guyana.
I'm happy to be joining the panel here today to share our experience from our part of the world.
I'm surrounded in two parts in the sense we are at the top of South America, so we can relate with Latin America, and then we are part of the Caribbean feeling and vibes and that is part of caric which also has a number of small islands.
We are unique in sandwich in both ways.
But notwithstanding that I would want to see for us in Guyana, is that we face similar challenges as any small island developing state.
But there are a number of things I want to highlight that what are some of the challenges? One, for example, I would say is, how do we balance your economic growth? It's very important in our case, for example, we're on an upward trajectory and simply because while for averzing they were the first to discover commercial oil in this part of the world, we have now discovered that.
We are just ten years into going into full stream of oil production.
What that means, opportunity or access to resources.
But with experiencing now, the growth that we are having is dealing also simultaneously with increased migration.
That is something we're challenged with.
The other aspect is environmental protection, very important.
That is why we have championed a new doctrine.
It's called a low carbon development strategy 2030.
Guyana has been able to one of the few countries that has been able to market our environment and to be able to harness and earn resources on base on carbon credit.
I mean, I brought a copy of that document if anyone would like.
Similarly, access to adequate housing.
That's part of the challenge.
I mean, that will be the overall challenge.
Because access to adequate housing in the sense, how do we strike the balance of increasing world costs, reality on the ground, and then to deal with ensuring that you remain at a lower level that the most needed, the most vulnerable are in the higher bracket.
How do you maintain that challenge? Certainly, those were the three main challenges I want to provide.
Based on the time, I would love to answer some more to give you Guana's experience, how we're dealing with all of these.
Yes.
Minister, we will be posing some specific questions and of course, the audience will also be posing.
Thank you for that.
Minister Bomaro, please help us to understand what is happening in Papua, New Guinea.
Thank you, moderator.
Thank you for this opportunity.
Papua New Guinea is one of the biggest islands in the South Pacific.
And Papine itself, we have about 596 smaller Al islands, apart from four bigger ones.
I appreciate our entertainer who came in LA, a neighboring country Solomon Islands, just east of Papua New Guinea.
Anyway, like other smaller island Ales, we do experience similar sentiments of greenhouse effects that is affecting our very, very small population areas like Pualu, Nahuru, all these places and a bigger islands, mainly the Melsian Islands, and that is Papua in itself, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Wanuau all in all, with the urban migration, it's having a bigger impact with the pull factor going into urban housing housing is one of the issues, both in urban but also in the rural settings.
Most of our islands are also with a greenhouse effect.
Sea levels rising affect them and how best would we support to elevate them? After all, people can migrate to anywhere.
There's a talk of migration we didn't happen.
But I appreciate to announce here that we had Pacific Island event for a month ago.
We got all the ministers and the ministers and official ministers from Pacific, we have came to help our one voice through that forum and will elevate up to PIF, Pacific Leaders forum and then it Palawan.
That's where we've spoken.
So we don't come little by little, we come as a Pacific Blue Pacific in one voice.
We are the finest supporters to come today.
To conclude With our development challenges, we also bring to this forum a unique place of doing business and we want to do it in a specific way.
But we need your support in terms of robust safety net and the use of our local knowledge to come and work with us.
Let us use our local knowledge, strong cultural heritage and communal land ownership.
In other words, land is mainly owned by the people, our local native and therefore any development to take place.
It's importantly government or any support NGOs to work closely with our people to help those lands to develop.
Thank you.
Thank you for that overview, Minister and now, Mr.
Abdul from the Comoros.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
As the previous speakers said, the issue of resilience is essential.
It is crucial.
It is a challenge for small island developing states.
If I take the example of the Kora Islands, well, we have an archipelago with four islands in the channel of Mozambique, and then we also have Mat, which is under the French administration.
For the Comoros, we believe that the issue of resilience cannot be solved quickly.
It needs reflection, it needs to be well thought through.
It needs consistency.
The Comoros has drafted a document.
With our goals by 2030.
Tourism is seen as the basis of our economic development, economic growth.
This being said, we also need to understand what we need in order to implement this document, this vision.
What we need are tools.
We need planning tools in order to implement these strategies.
We need a strategic tools, but also better urban planning.
This is why with our approach, we want for three of our islands, we want to have better management for territorial planning, and we want better urban development plans.
What we have so far is a plan for one of the islands for the smallest of the islands.
Why do we need such urban planning in order to solve this problem in a planned orderly manner.
Because this is not something that we will solve from one day to the next.
This is something that has to be done on the long term.
This is a long game.
So in order to be consistent in our resilience, we need to understand our territory perfectly.
This is why we have carried out studies on our territory, especially on the coastline in order to understand the fragility and the vulnerability of the coastal areas.
On top of that, we also mapped the risks on the islands in order to understand the risks to which the islands are exposed.
Well, I could mention some of them.
Many risks are linked to hurricanes, floods, and so on.
The list is very long, many risks for one territory.
In order to think about the way we want to develop, we need to understand the risks and these need to be integrated into our strategic documents.
This has been done.
As I said, this document covers tourism, land, tenure security, but also development of touristic infrastructure.
I don't know if I have a bit more time, but if I may, I just wanted to add one more thing.
The main challenge now is not to draft a document, but it's to implement it.
So we'll need to put the emphasis on governance and on how to mobilize funds.
So I'll stop here for now, and if I have more questions, I'll talk some more.
Thank Abdul.
And you now lead us into having a conversation.
Yes.
So let me join you here to have this conversation.
I Mr.
Abdul started the conversation, so I'll pose it to the other ministers.
How can you balance the tourism growth? We've heard response from the cameras things that they are putting in place.
In terms of Minister Muttalib, what are you putting in place to balance this growth in terms of coastal protection, land availability, housing, and to strengthen climate resilience.
Thank you so much.
Actually, to understand the trade offs that we have in Maldives, you need to understand the tourism there.
We have two types of tourism.
One is resort tourism, the other one is the guest of tourism.
Resort tourism means one island, one resort.
And these are uninhabited islands.
The coastal protection is provided by the owners of those establishments.
There is no conflict with the local population.
That's fine.
But recent years, we have started another type of tourism, which is called guest house tourism.
These are established on inhabited islands where mostly the land plots that was given to people for residential purposes are converted to guest houses.
Um, and the problem is, when the guest tourism become profitable, it becomes successful, the value increases and the owners themselves either lease or sell these lands and then migrate to the capital city.
Um, so it is not in the case of businesses outbidding families take up the land.
It is families making a rational decision where they own the land, but because they make money from that, they make a livelihood from that, they lease or sell and then move to another place.
The very land that meant to keep the families on the island become the means by which they live.
Mm hm.
It's very easy to say instinctively, residential plots cannot be converted to the guest houses.
But on many islands, guesthouse tourism is the only viable economic activity.
So it's near impossible to tell family they can't use these lands for the one thing that earns them are living.
The challenge we face is mods is relying heavily on tourism.
Because of that one shock, single sector economy is exposed, we see it all the time.
COVID 19, even now the Middle East crisis, we face it.
26% tourism is down by 26% year to year.
It's extremely painful for a country like us.
Diversifying is not an option.
We have to go for that.
As a country with 500,000 people scattered across Indian Ocean, we don't have many options actually in terms of to make it a feasible, a sustainable industry.
Yes.
Those industries when we put on inhabited islands where these islands are very small, they start competing with the land that we have for the residential purposes.
So it's very difficult to manage these challenges.
But ultimately, the idea is we have to get help, we have to build safe islands that can provide sustainable environment, sustainable economic opportunities for the people and consolidate them.
Yes.
That is actually the challenges and that's where Es Maldives we have to try to and that is what we are trying to do.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
Let us know what is happening with Guyana in terms of their challenges, notwithstanding the new attempt at diversifying the economy with oil production.
I would say that we're pursuing a tourism model that is different to many of the states countries and their economy.
Simply because I want to go quickly into our geography.
First of all, we're below sea level.
About 90% of our population live along what is called the coastal belt.
And that will tell you the dependency, but that brings us challenges.
It brings us challenges in terms of geographical location of drainage, et cetera, and us having to rely a lot on gravitation system.
In fact, it was a Dutch who had designed our treaty system.
So there are a lot of pressures to move inwards.
Then there is another aspect of our country whereby we have indigenous people.
We have people from what is called the Hinterland and any one single group is the indigenous people that own, not about occupying, they own at least 15% of the land mass in Guyana.
That means they have title for the land.
That has to respect and other responsibility in terms of going to the area.
We're practicing a lot of going back to your original question.
We're coming back to what is called a lot of ecotourism.
People tourism.
Eco tourism.
And maximizing in terms of the local scenario within in the Hinterland.
That is what I would want to see.
A lot of community based eco tourism type activities.
It has advantage too because it allows us while we're earning as a means from tourism, it also allows us to maintain our biodiversity.
It allows us to keep that tradition to support indigenous and the rural communities as to what they are doing.
Um, and further reduce any pressure on the coastal plain, for which we're so much heavily reliant on.
I would want to say it's also in keeping with what I alluded to earlier with our low carbon development strategy 2030, because unique with that strategy is that we have said for example, we are able to earn from our forests because we have forests, we can earn, but we're doing that in a responsible way.
We have the lowest deforestation rate, but we still also want to earn from that and practicing activities that can ensure that you have replanting, et cetera.
Thank you, Minister.
Minister Bomaro, help us to understand the balance that you have been able to strike in Papua Nu Guinea, tourism growth, coastal protection, housing.
How have you been able to strike that balance? Thank you.
Firstly, Papadinea as you know, we are about 800 languages.
It means that we are about 800 ethical small groups becoming one nation.
The highest speaking languages in the world is from Papua New Guinea.
How do we balance it, to go more further.
South Pacific, all in all economy relied mainly on tourism.
Except our bigger islands like most Melian islands like Papua Guinea, Fiji, Solomon, one or two, we do have other commodities that support economy.
Therefore, coming back to Papua Guinea, we have four main cities.
That is one of the cities, consider the cities to be a a tourist city that is east rubble on the island.
Therefore, that way we encourage SMEs in small to medium enterprises.
They go to range households small hotels or loss with tourist guide and also the lyrics from Japanese World War two.
All these things are there, tourists come in that way.
Also to that we encourage and small SMs to small people to go into doing their own way of living and raising their own internal revenue.
That's how Bal Sudan We don't see labor rights from time to time.
Government supports them, but not to them, but mostly because people own much of the land, about 97 or 96% of the land is owned by the people.
Government three to 4%.
When governments do something, the government acquire land from the people.
That's the ownership right.
You will see people play an important role as long as you provide necessity like finance or provide incentives for desert.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
May I remind the audience, please pose your questions in the chat.
We will come to your questions shortly.
I want to now turn and get the regional perspective.
May I invite miss Gina Bon, head of Environment and Climate Change Department in the Indian Ocean to talk with us using the same issue around tourism and your perspective on the region ability to balance tourism, coastal zone management, housing, and the other challenges that small island developing states will face.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for the question and I'm happy to be here to be listening to these interventions from the sister islands.
I work for the Indian Ocean Commission and we work basically with five island states.
But in some of the works that we do, we go beyond the island states.
We go to the East Coast of Africa and in certain instances as well, we work with some of the islands of the Atlantic.
What I think listening to the various interventions, I think most of the countries where we work, where we intervene, the problems are similar.
Uh huh.
Yes.
When we look at a country like the Seychelles, for instance, very small and everything runs around one or two islands.
Meanwhile, the country has 116 islands, but the economy runs around a few.
And then we have the population growing.
How do you manage the population growth? Above the population growth, you have also the workers coming to support the system because the country doesn't have sufficient labor to sustain the tourism industry, to sustain the fisheries industry.
We have to cater.
Sass, for instance, has to cater for all that.
When you bring in the countries, the International Labor Organization tells you that you need to ensure that these people are housed properly.
So you have to cater for these people as well.
This in itself, and when you look at, be it also for Mauritius, for Koros where we work, everything is along the coast.
Where do you draw the line? Where is the coast when we talk about islands? When you look at some of the countries having those very steepy this hilly topography, everything runs down to the coast.
How do you manage all that? The problems that we're seeing in the countries, we give a lot of priorities to tourism because this is the mainstay of the economy.
And being the mainstay of the economy, you have to cater to ensure that you attracted the tourism and the tourism at different levels.
You have the very high flyer tourists coming in and you also have the backpackers.
How do you manage that? So it comes along with its problem, waste management.
It comes along with the pressure on water, the pressure on land, and the pressure for electricity as well because you need to cater for all of that.
Yes, thank you for that.
I want to bring in now, miss Jin Min Hong, Director of Water and Urban Development sector from the Asian Development Bank, we hear about the challenges.
I want us now to focus on the financing framework that would help to address some of these challenges, particularly the challenge that they have with water, housing, and protecting coastal zones.
Thank you so much, Carl.
First, let me take the opportunity to really appreciate the great performance done by Gailen from Solomon Island.
That was really a very powerful performance to make everyone to think, how we would develop city.
Also, thank you for demonstration how the Solomon Island people are living by the ocean in the ocean.
Thank you so much.
That's a very, very powerful performance.
Asian Deed Bank has been continuously supporting the development of small island states.
We have a 15 small island country members, including Maldives, including PNG, P&G is the largest, and also other 13 are much more smaller.
For the financing part, I want to say three points.
First, the the traditional or the conventional financing mechanism doesn't work in the island countries because the island countries have very, very small market and very high construction costs and very limited fiscal space, and of course, the repeated disaster recovery requirement.
Not only that, the operation and maintenance cost of the infrastructure is also very high.
In most of the cases, the operational and maintenance are more difficult than the physical investment itself.
Based on that, we need to shift from the traditional financing but to a more, how to say balanced financing, and So here, the concessional lending, the balanced financing, the grants, and also the technical assistance, all together, they are all very, very important.
Specifically in the housing system.
It's not only the housing, but the whole ecosystem of the housing, which would include the land population.
You have all mentioned that in most of the island countries, more than 90% of the population live in the coastal area.
We are facing the sea level rising, we are facing the coastal erosion, we are facing the flood.
They are all issues there.
Also due to this very complicated land ownership and then the cultural side of the land, this all brings actual challenges when we do the land population.
This should be part of this housing system.
And then the second is the very, very important partnership together because we need blended financing.
So To be frank in our specific department, which we cover 14 countries, we have more than ten different partners to work together to put fund together because otherwise, we always provide grant and concessional lending.
The amount is small, so we have to pool all the funding resources together to build, say one water treatment plant, specifically say we did a huge desalination plant in Kilbs and then there was a several financing resoce from World Bank, EDB and also GCF.
This to pull this together.
Yeah.
The second is the financing partners are so important.
Then the third part is that we really need to see that not only the tourism, the housing, the urban service, and then the sustainable tourism.
Three should be a combined objective and also a combined theme for us to consider as climate resilient specific adaptation priorities.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love the idea of bringing the funding partners together to support this.
But Mr.
Orving, tell us of some practical examples that you have been involved with, particularly to address the issue of the infrastructure on water.
Even though we're surrounded by water, smaller developing states have a major challenge with accessing water.
Right.
Thank you so much.
First of all, I'd like to also acknowledge Gillian Oti and your performance, but I also want to take a moment to pause what you really asked for.
I think you said, stand with us.
Yeah.
Then we talk about what we do.
I That level of inclusivity goes way beyond tokenism, but our systems are not designed for that.
Coming from practice, but also having served as ambassador for water leading the last UN Water Conference, um, Saying that the process is radical, inclusive, and that we stand with everyone, but then also make that happen is something completely different.
If we want that level of inclusion to come up with the solutions that are fit for the future, we have to redesign our processes and our systems.
Second, and this also comes a bit in How do we create value on our small island and development states? Those economies are totally different and comparable to others.
If we continue to benchmark, validate, and evaluate the solutions that need to be tailored to the islands based on mechanisms that come from Breton boots or our colonial past, we will never make your islands fit for the future.
It's not only that we have to redesign the approach and the governance and what really means.
We also have to redesign our value mechanisms.
There are three points.
The rules that we have tell us what we must do.
I But that leads us to more inequality.
IPCC tells us that $0.99 out of every dollar increases climate change and increases vulnerability, that's tough.
Second, the science tells us what we can do.
Luckily, the UN also agreed with the court ruling of the International Court of Justice that climate injustice, luckily, we have a majority in the UN that is still saying and science tells us what we can do within the context of the small island and states, um, It's the needs and the ambitions of what we want to that are not yet addressed in those economies in those policies that we have.
With the Global Commission on Economics and Water, I set up in the lead up to the UN Water Conference, we were practical and theoretical, but we set up just water partnerships.
Partnership with principles that try to include everyone, create new governance systems, and rethink what blended finance really means, not from a stock market or an equity perspective, but from a community perspective or a small island perspective.
That brings in a totally new different way of thinking about an economy that is value based that comes from local needs, and that will increase resiliency and sustainability with justice at the heart.
It's not easy.
I think that the need to to come from the World Urban Forum to bring that issue of the islands into the urban and economic context with justice and equity, et cetera at the heart is topical and the momentum is key.
This is the year of three Rio Cops After World Urban Forum, we go to decertification, UN CCD, biodiversity CBD, and Climate COP.
After that, at the end of this year, there is the UN Water Conference.
I would challenge to figure out how this collective of voices, including you can draft that agenda that will help us rethink our approach, our governance, and our valuation mechanisms to land at the UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi in December later this year.
Okay.
Thank you, Mr.
Orving.
This is a challenge for us in terms of a very practical solution to the next water conference.
We have to be a little bit more radical in our approach to how we address that.
Thank you for that.
Mr.
Pérez, over to you to provide us with a more concrete example of the effects of tourism on housing and urban systems in smaller is developing states, giving the example of Spain.
Firstly, thank you very much for inviting me as a professor of my university of the Balearic Islands in a region in Spain to be talking about an event or a session in which all the representatives come from independent states.
I believe from my point of view, we may learn as well from the Balaricland a territory.
Capacity that has been developing for 70 years in its tourism sector.
The whole territory I'm talking about, the whole territory is susceptible to this tourism sector.
During my 5 minutes of introduction, I would like to divide it into parts, first one to anticipate dynamics and secondly, planning in times of multi crisis with three or four short reflections.
With respect to what we may say about anticipating dynamics, there is a key issue.
I think all the island territories, especially all those seeds with a huge tourism pressure are risk spaces.
They are very vulnerable from a social point of view, fragile, from an environmental perspective, with a lot of highly sought after from an economic point of view.
In the Balaric Islands, we are facing a new neocolonialism, that is a financial state Angan colonialism.
And so when we talk about the protection of nature spaces, when we are talking about urban planning, housing, tourism, state agency to sector, all of them are interrelated.
They are concepts that are very related, and they become a single factor.
The third reflection is to understand islands as labs.
They are laboratories from a nature and an urban point of view.
A fourth reflection that for me is that we are in danger.
This danger is that these island territories may become, in the case of the Balaric Islands, is the case, colonies of new European metropolitan areas and we are increasingly more dependent on other territories in the continent.
Maybe the their new metropolitan territories without these territorial continuity in the case of the Mediterranean in Europe, also in the Caribbean region, and so on.
The fourth reflection is related to if we are talking about tourism, if we are talking about a state agency tourism sector, these are areas that become globalized islands.
They have become globalized islands.
Firstly, in the construction of inaccurate human settlements.
In Dominic Republic in Puntacaa, we saw that every hotel room was generating 16,000 of informal settlements.
The global impact is huge.
Secondly, in the cities, the peopleification, uh or gentrification, that is leading to the social failure.
Obviously, on the other hand, and this is the focal point of many of these discussions, the access to housing for the local population.
Just one more minute if you allow me to go to the second reflection, the planning in multi crisis times in these territories, for example, the Balearic Islands.
The key here is the declined of the growth decline.
The growth declined.
We need to rehabilitate.
We need to regenerate.
Within this, we may talk about the territorial preservation that all the territory is preserved.
Obviously commit to a strong investment in housing that is not only building protective houses, but also tax measures to support lending and also new public funds that may face this challenge of housing for the local populations.
Mr.
Pérez, for putting all of that in context for us using the example of Spain and tying it back to what is happening in the Caribbean.
Because as we balance between economic growth and tourism development, there are some significant challenges, particularly around housing.
Thank you for that.
I want to come back to our government representatives or ministers.
And So we know the challenges and most of all of you have put it straight on the table, no apologies that it would require financing.
So how can innovative financing mechanisms and multi stakeholder partnership, including those linked to blue economy and tourism, enable seeds to scale and accelerate the delivery of climate resilient, affordable housing? How can innovative financing mechanisms and this multi stakeholder partnership be used to build climate resilient and affordable housing.
Over to you to answer that.
Before you answer, Minister, if I may, please pose the questions in the chat and also comments.
We welcome your comments.
Some of you are probably from small island developing states with specific example, please share those with us.
Over to you, Minister.
Thank you so much.
Traditionally, Ms has always funded housing through external loans, but recently because of fiscal space we have, is very difficult and we have come up with a solution where we are bringing private sector to help us to build housing.
One of the things is that we have said a certain percentage of bank lending has to be cheap finance for the homeowners and as well as we are bringing private sectors by giving free land and other concessions.
But local unity has limits, especially for the countries, we have enormous challenges faced.
What we are crying out for is international community, international partners to recognize that housing is a basic infrastructure like water and sewage, those kind of things.
Until now, housing is even ADB, the country's World Bank or other multi development partners don't provide us the grants or concessional finance for housing.
It is very difficult to get what we see is countries like Maldives, we need basic housing to be considered as a basic infrastructure, we need them in terms of population consolidation, in terms of how we can provide sustainable, safe environment for the people.
That is important.
What we are asking is we have three asked and rebalanced climate finance toward adaptation and make it simpler to reach, fully operationalized loss and damage fund and embed the Antigua and Barbuda agenda and finance flows.
So trying to back my earlier point, funding consolidation and resident housing together as an adaptation is something that six countries need.
If that can be recognized and made it easy for us to access, and then I think local ingenuity and then private sector assistance, we can provide the safe, sustainable environment for our people to live.
Thank you for that.
In our case in Guyana, first of all, in historical context has funded housing programs poorly funded by the state.
We have been pushing out what is more land allocation distribution.
For example, in the previous five years, we've allocated over 56,000 lots.
These will be new serviceable lots and the infrastructure work, et cetera, all of that is funded through government.
That means that when the budget is being prepared, there was a time history where we were dependent fully on the multilateral agencies were even at one time under the IMF, et cetera, and that even curtailed in what we can do because once you have IMF on the others, that means the conditional there are conditionalities on which you will operate that you can't do more than what you want to do.
But we've quietly moved beyond moving beyond that.
We have a hybrid system, however, in terms of houses.
So we have whereby the beneficiaries, a responsive banking system that allows us to be able to access loans at low mortgage rate.
So the banks has been very supportive in this regard.
But similarly though, what we've been doing moving forward is that we have three types of program.
One, we are developing a new city in answer to move inwards, and this is happening as I speak.
We also are further embarking in housing program within our Hinterland and the rural areas inwards so that they can be able to support because in the indigenous communities, they are unable to access financing because the lands are communal lands, they're owned by the villages.
So you can enlarge that as an asset.
But moving forward, we have an aggressive housing program now that allows us to do much more and So that's basically what our housing model entails.
So let me get the information from Minister Bomaro in terms of accessing investments, financing mechanisms for housing.
Thank you, moderator.
In particular context, we would say that firstly, our government P capital office asked us to se 10,000 hectas of land to make available houses for our people who can be from low class, middle class, or high class.
We create titles for them to get and then get loan out of it from within.
The government has gone to do stamp duty, about 200 million aside for people who get the money to develop within to build the houses.
That's one met but it's slow is not that effective, I would say that.
But then we do have to blue global green economy.
There's a bit of funny.
Now, the organization within the Pacific developed Fiji and Tal into it already, and that's good.
P is also that money needs to be the arrangements made with the Bank of Papua Guinea for that financing.
And when necessary things are put in place, I believe people will get the money from that platform.
Our perspective as institution that is providing home, houses for everyone, we do have two or three sets of people.
The people who are living in the Atho Islands, We just see this.
You have to provide houses for those who will see this.
You also provide or create accommodate our people the A island which are sinking slowly.
There are two different things here.
But most of what I can see is that the government is focusing mainly in the cities and towns.
So where it comes now for you to come in with us to secle a good adequate home, quality home that is resilient at the village level for small people.
But how is that funded? What source do you access for funding, whether it's relocation or rehabilitation of those houses? For rehabilitation, say for property government, You know, we mainly focus on our cities, towns, and districts.
But our people, local people, some people more sustainable themselves, we do support, government support, but not target traditional housing corporation, but to other NGO organizations.
And therefore, I would advocate more better for you to look into this, support us a small islands.
Already we had, I think you would know about cataract islands in the Boganville which is between the Solomon Islands and Oran.
Slowly in my district, I come from two.
I got six or seven islands who are also having that problem.
Uh huh.
And we tried to put a stone wall, but we could not help them out.
So it's very limited support.
Well, it seemed as if from what you're saying, very limited support is available.
Yes.
Yes.
There's limited support from the g and also support from the rest of us.
So I would go with brother, he said, I see enough pepper talk.
Let's do a real business.
And please go to Pacific Way you have seen the photo when the Alfred was there some houses on the sea? Yes.
Yes.
That's Pacific Way.
Yes.
So we can put them on the dry land.
We have to see how best we can accommodate them on.
That's how they've been living.
Right.
And that require investment.
Yeah.
Yes.
And partnership for that.
But there are some difficulty.
Mr.
Abdul.
Merci.
Well, thank you very much.
About what has been said, our case is particular.
There are more buildings on the shores than in the cities.
That's linked, you have the diaspora in the rural areas.
The diaspora in France invests a lot in the housing that are in the villages on our islands.
I'm talking about the self building housings.
But now in the cities on the other hand, the state, the government is supposed to do that together with the private sector which struggles with being committed and working in the housing sector because of the tenure security, which is why the government would like to secure land tenure in order to convince the private sector to go for it, to do it, and to invest in the housing sector.
We lack housing programs.
We had just one big one, you'll see the figures that are quite different from what happens elsewhere.
We've built 184 housings for people who had suffered from a hurricane.
This has been financed by the World Bank, but I'm talking about the rural areas.
Apart from that, our government is thinking about having the housing sector better and more committed in order to boost the economy and solve as many problems as it gets as possible in the big cities, which falls within our urban development plan.
We take into consideration these very aspects.
That would be about it in a nutshell.
In a way, we count a lot on mobilizing the finance.
Sector and some international tools which can be done as it has been said, which can't be done without solidarity.
We need a high degree of solidarity between SIDS.
We have to talk to raise one common voice during meetings such as this one.
We need advocacy towards institutions that fund housings in order to facilitate procedures so that money is to be found easier.
Okay.
Abdul.
In fact, I'm happy you may emphasize the role of private sector.
One of the things that I have observed for this wolf, the importance of private sector being at the table in a very active and meaningful way.
Your discourse here will help to advance.
I want to get Gino, your position on the innovative financing mechanism, particularly to address the issue of housing and basic urban services, especially as it relates to tourism.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I think on a regional scale, it's a little bit tricky into how a region can do that.
But what we do as a regional organization, we position ourselves as a facilitator.
We provide space for dialogue between the private sector, the government, and also for the communities.
We work a lot in trying to raise awareness amongst the population, amongst the states.
We get the states to provide a common vision into how we can work around the issues that are related to urbanization.
Not solely, we don't go right into the housing issues, but everything the ecosystem around it, such as the waste management, how do we bring the population, the private sector, the government and the local actors to work together to address the issues of waste management.
We work with the communities as well in the schools to raise awareness at a very early age for the children to understand that environmental protection is important for the survival of the countries.
We work a lot on looking at the marine ecosystem, why is it important that we work on the integrated coastal zone management and the need for the children themselves to be part and parcel of the process.
What we do as well, we're in the process of looking at bringing information.
We are bringing climate information to the population for them to be able to um, to understand what is happening in the climate space, how they can organize the national adaptation plan.
We are supporting Mauritius, for instance, in developing the national adaptation plan, and we are bringing that knowledge of Mauritius to the other countries where they can also benefit from this type of things.
We through our regional programs, we go out there to look for funds.
Funds to finance regional programs.
They are not big financing that can help in building schools or roads.
But what we do is try to bring all the communities of the islands together, all the nations of the islands within the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic together so that they understand that there is a need for us to work together and speak the common voice, which is being raised here by our colleagues.
And we've seen as well a very specific case in Madagascar, for instance, Madagascar is not a small island state, but it is an island and they do have small islands that are as big, I would say, as the seas or even more bigger than the Comoros in certain cases.
And there with the communities, with the head of the community, with the mayor of the island, with the with the community leaders.
We've been working with them.
We have a very specific case in one of the island called St.
Mary in Madagascar, where we've really worked with the private sector, the community, the schools, everybody is working together.
Today this is one of the islands where they are now proclaiming themselves as the aspiration to become a zero plastic island and the sustainable island for tourism.
If that model works in in Madagascar, we may be able to replicate and adapt in other regions where that is required.
Thank you.
I love the idea let's start with public awareness, public education, creating the vision, creating a plan, and then see partnership to support that.
I think that's a model that has been working throughout the small island developing state.
Miss Jin Ming Hong, what are some of the innovative financing mechanism? But before you answer, may I again invite the audience to pose the question in the chat.
We want to be able to include your voice, to include your suggestions and concerns, please pose the question there.
Scan the QR code, Um, so you can have access to pose the question.
Over time, thank you very much, Karl.
I want to continue to talk about this tourism as we all mentioned this tourism.
In AB's view, for this tourism development, if it's properly planned, it's in fact a very, very important resource to help the economic growth to finance the resilient housing because in fact, tourism and housing are quite connected.
And also, it can be part of the key resource for the climate adaptation.
And for better urban services because it also need urban surveys.
But this all needs to start with integrated urban planning, covering the land use, including housing, tourism and covering the infrastructure, including water sanitation, and also you all have mentioned the key thing in island countries, that's solid waste management.
Here, I really want to share one case from ADB because All we have heard there are so many challenges.
Let me share one successful case so far.
Let's see how we can replicate such kind of case to the countries.
That's about a case in Palau.
Palau is also a this country.
ADB supported the Coral Barbado resilient urban development strategy.
If you visited Palau, you know Coral is the country's major city center.
It has a lot of challenges including urban congestion, housing pressure because it attracts so many tourism and also huge infrastructure gaps, and still the tourism is increasing.
So but at the same time, there is other island, one other island called Barbado.
It has not really, attracted the tourism and has a big economic growth potential.
This strategy, what ADB has done is to address the housing tourism and also the resilience together, basically to diversify the tourism beyond only in this congested city center in Coral, but also try to move the tourism also to the Barbado island.
So by doing this, the Barbado also got the opportunity to build more housing, you know, resilient housing to attract the tourists.
And also through this strengthened urban planning, we do also improve the natural and ecosystem in both Barbado and also the coral.
So now the strategy has been approved and the government is very keen to move forward.
So we are following up to identify the investment, including the private sector investment to really make this to be, you know, implemented because Palau also is quite attractive to the private sector.
It has quite nice environment for private sector investment.
Um, so what we want to say here is that if we can do a proper planning, we can really combine the affordable housing and climate resilient development together with the water sanitation, the basic service.
To support the tourism development.
Yes.
My final words in fact comes from the same view of this minister that for tourism is key for the economic development in these countries.
Really, there's no other choice, only the tourism is the best one.
But really, the people based tourism should be developed and also we need to be maximize localized scenario.
Border tourism to attract more tourists.
That's the key for the development and some successful pieces for the future.
Yes.
I would stop here.
Thank you.
Yes.
I hear the recommendations and I'm glad that you're intervening with giving us a concrete example and you've left on a note in terms of localizing, picking up from Sir Pérez.
It's not the globalized tourism type activity that you are warning us about.
It has to be localized.
It has to um, within the context that does not impact negatively.
Yes, the economy and the environment of the small islands because we have examples as you've provided us in the Dominican Republic, where it has song the other way.
Thank you for your intervention and thank you, miss an Zong M.
But as we coming I'm seeing that there maybe two questions posed or two comments made in the chat.
Again, please scan the QR code, make your comments, questions so that we can, in fact, let me go there.
Now, I believe there are two questions that were posed.
One asks, which are the island tourism destination that you look to for inspiration? For example, those that are getting the connection between housing, water, and tourism right.
Let me start with the ministers and government officials here.
Do you have any example that you would look to to say, this country has done it right? They seem to have the right formula, and you would learn from them, draw from them, put it within context of your country? Any country any small island developing state that would have stood out for you? Yes, Minister.
Thank you.
I think Maldives resort tourism is definitely the best that would be for the local people, the housing needs, all these things if you look at Maldives resort tourism is the best.
But that is not available for every country because we have 1,200 small islands where we can literally put one hotel on one island, one resort on the island.
That is extremely good gift that God has given to us.
In that case, we build on resort tourism, doesn't affect local population, it doesn't take land from local population.
It provides foreign exchanges, it provides economic growth, it provides economic opportunities for us, job opportunities, all these things.
But the problem we are facing now is because people see the resort tourism sector is the only sector there, they actually have quite a control of it and people are not getting the benefit they they would like to see from the tourism sector than the common people.
Because of that, the local tourism, what we say guestro tourism has started about ten years ago, so ago.
When guestro tourism started, Even the inhabited islands are very small, like ten hectaas, 15 hectas, 20 hectas.
When guest tourism started, when it becomes successful, those people, the residential lands are converted to guest houses and the beaches become guest house, beaches, all these things are specifically targeted for the tourism because it generates money, income, everything.
It pushes out the local people out of those islands.
Some islands we have 15 people.
There is an inhabited island where there is no school kid.
So basically, when guestroturism comes, it pushes out the local population out of those islands.
For us, you know, the resort tourism is the best.
It doesn't affect us the way that other countries is facing because of tourism.
But we are facing the same issues with the guestrosoism, and we would like to have a way to address that so that local population can live together with the tourists.
Okay.
May I ask the minister from Guyana.
Brief.
In our case, because Ghana is not an island, but we have a number of islands in our country.
But You may not know that Ghana means land of many water.
We have been starting to maximize in that scenario of encouraging a lot of the tourism in the sense of utilizing our waterways and somewhat as what my colleague here is talking about, resort of tourism, encouraging persons to come at resorts, encouraging yachts, et cetera, to start coming so people can utilize the water space for another form of entertainment tourism.
I will not necessarily be able to relate directly from my personal experience in terms of what some of the states country has experienced in terms of reliance on that type of tourism.
Okay.
Thank you.
I want to jump just give me a second.
Sir Pérez, I want to bring you this in terms of the question about any example that you highlight for us in your presentation that the Dominican Republic probably is not the best example.
Would you identify a small island developing state that probably would be a good example.
I think that taking one example a successful example.
I think it's complicated.
I try to insist on this aspect that tourism and this sector cannot be separated.
Some territories are meant for tourism, but they also have to be ordered in a specific way.
What do we mean? We have to manage it in a specific way.
What we're trying to do, I don't want to set other examples, but in the Balearic island, there are four islands.
There is one island that is called Minorca.
Since 2004, the Territorial Plan was a model plan for many different Mediterranean island because in 2004, 20 years ago, there was a de growth which actually helps the territory and also helps the local people and also makes the tourism more sustainable.
There is not a vanalization of the territory, which is something that is a major problem in these areas.
There's also the protection of the territory So that we were able to de grow the tourism.
That's the year 2004 from 2004 on, which is a very ambitious plan.
We use it as a document that we then applied on many other different islands.
It has, of course, its ups and downs.
It was quite positive, but I think it has many issues as well.
For example, the problem of housing was also a big issue.
When all these issues are tackled in the right way, for example, the access to housing for the local people after ten, 15, 20 years, becomes the main issue for all these islands.
So Abdul.
For the Kamors, there is one island in particular, the island of Meli.
It's the smallest of the islands.
This is a biospra according to the UNSCO.
There are two national parks on this island with a lot of people coming in.
It's a lot of tourists because of the turtles that we have.
At some point of the year, there are a lot of turtles that reach the island of Mui.
This is a touristic attraction.
As I said earlier, we will have to prepare for the visitors, for the tourists, so that they can find a place to sleep in, but also we need to take care of the infrastructure, road, but also sanitation, water, and waste management.
This is one of the main challenges on this island.
We're trying to solve this problem in order to draw more tourists.
This is what I wanted to add.
Thank you.
Trying to balance, you know, it's a very tricky tight rope to walk.
That's what I'm hearing from you.
Minister from Papua New Guinea.
Thank you.
Just a little contribution there.
I you know, Papa, also Pacific three rises, Polynesia, Blanesia and Micronesia, you will see that most of the tourism activities take place on small island, but the Fiji would inspire us more in the Pacific with the way they prepare tourism.
Tourism is good in Fiji.
Basically, we do have too, but in comparison to all of us, we are in the process at this point in time, Papa is going into putting in national rugby into context with an Australian National Rugby League.
That would encourage sports tourism.
It's not by 28, we should have the first NRL team but all in all, the inspiration from the Pacific would be Fiji.
Fiji is the thing that seats in the Pacific would look for work together with to see how well it will come into play in the Pacific.
Thank you.
Do we have any representative from Fiji here? Yes, we're hearing from example as you are an inspiration.
Thank you for that.
But using moderators privilege, is an area that they have not spoken about and I would love for you to comment on it if you are able to, please.
We are vulnerable.
We're vulnerable to natural disaster.
As we talk about balancing and innovative means of financing, do you have any example? For example, I know coming from Jamaica, we're just hit with Melissa, there was the Caribbean catastrophic risk insurance fund that helped us, would you say this could serve as an example as to how to address the issue in terms of what small island developing states are faced with, vulnerable shocks due to um natural hazards.
Yes.
In the context of what's being assessed, you could see more holistic approach to this.
Building back after disasters with innovative funding is a bit too late.
Preparation pace.
This comes of mixing your economic needs on tourism, with those resiliency needs and with your fundamental needs on water, sanitation, hygiene.
Uh, we set up a program in Asia and the Pacific called Water as leverage, which really looks through the lens of water in the context of building resiliency.
It's community led, but it brings in financial partners like the ADB and others to ensure that whatever is being built, being it housing, economy, um, natural restoration is done in the context of building climate resiliency to prevent the impact of these disasters to be so worse.
One of the examples shows that nature based solutions, uh, strengthen healthy environments, create opportunities for tourism, sports, but also housing that is healthy, addresses the issues of water sanitation and hygiene, and guess what? Contrary to the desalination plants that came with big loans and therefore higher debts and that were running on fossil, so larger carbon footprint, these nature based solutions were a third cheaper in CapEx and in building and half of the cost in maintenance and operations, and they were built on local and traditional knowledge with the community and showed that during those disasters, that they were actually able to build that resiliency in those communities.
So The holistic approaches where it's not a single focus on a certain part of the economy, tourism, but that includes future orientation, healthy environments, schools, jobs, and resiliency in the context of climate change adds value to that investment, but also creates the opportunity for multiple resources where that investments can come from.
It's not an answer to all of your questions, but it's part of the solutions to look for alternatives to not be too responsive to those challenges, but be proactive to a more future orientation.
That's exactly what you're doing.
Yes.
Thank you for that.
I have two more questions if you would allow me from the audience.
Thank you so much for participating.
There's a question here from country's perspective, what nature based financing instruments are the most promising? Just following on your intervention, which we need to do before.
Nature based solutions would be one such that we need to do before.
Which one is the most promising and relevant to address the challenges that you are facing, nature based solutions.
Any idea of those? Let's take one or two of our government officials.
But this is in terms of housing construction or this not just housing construction, but in terms of responding to the challenges because we spent a good number of.
Minutes talking about the challenges.
The thing is to be able to strike that balance.
One, to be able to have adaptable technology to help with your local housing construction and your boom.
So that's on one aspect.
The other aspect is, how do we do this in the challenge of vulnerability of each country has its own vulnerability.
Some are more blessed than some.
But how do we ride between the two? That is what is very important.
Any particular solution, nature based solution, I know, for example, building houses on stilts in Guyana.
In our case, well, there are two things we are doing.
Um, one, as we move inwards to be able to utilize more, first of all, building homes, utilizing the local scenarios.
So as you may be aware, as you go far inland, you have accessibility to more wood.
You have accessibility, for example, in other parts in our country where we border with Brazil, we have clay type soil that you can utilize for more clay type blocks, housing construction.
So it's adaptable technology in that we're using whatever local that can be advantageous.
So that's one aspect.
And then, as you quite rightly said, there are two ways.
One is moving inward so that we can move away from the vulnerability, going to higher lands, but that will still pose this challenge since everything is concentrated on the central.
So how far do you go for housing, but at the same time, to ensure that the amenities and government services move in that scenario.
Yeah.
So it's to strike that balance and the sea level is rising, and that's a fact.
So The level we've had to respond in terms of our seawalls, which is our major sea defense to prevent flooding.
We've had to raise the level of the height of the seawall because the sea level is rising and that has continued to pose for the vulnerability boring expenses that you have to incur in terms of maintaining your defense.
And so we've had to go higher for construction of homes.
Yes, we build on stills because you get elevated homes as we call it, but it's also even from the foundation level of what we determine as our foundation level, we've had to raise that over the years.
And that cost, that's an additional cost for housing construction because it's more you're spending on your foundation versus what you used to do.
May I invite the minister from Papua New Guinea to have a say on this? Nature based solution.
Any example you can submit? Yeah.
Nature based solutions.
Really, I'll put it this way.
Most of the speak speak in the community local setting and the urban setting, you would see that.
In urban setting, that's people used to use the savanna, uni grass we normally grass or the sago Sag as a group.
But nowadays, with the increase in population, slowly is going off.
You no longer see that because people savanna land for cacao.
At the end, you get the chocolate planting.
They use those land also for other commodities like manilla.
There's an increase of population, there's a pressure on these things.
You will see that people are putting pressure to start to buy roofing irons as a rule, local people.
Now in the urban setting now, it's the other way around.
They got no choice, but they have to spress have to purchase roofing iron or they have to go into PPP rest with the government.
We provide housing, we do have land.
We provide for them to come get the title and build their own housing.
In other words, what we're doing at the moment is with the private sector is built, they can purchase and own the property with the government making available funding, stamp duty free funding.
Yeah.
That's how we can see housing in our context now.
Roofing on.
As I've always mentioned and it would be a work for us to take home is this We bon three basic things, food, shelter, water.
Yes.
Irregless of status, human mix will have to go with this.
Now, with housing, with a population with small islands like us, are islands or sheets, pollution will increase, land will not increase.
Greenhouse will come into play, sea rise will go up, land will not change.
Therefore, we have to be very drastic with whatever we do to consider small islands.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for this.
Two more, and then we close out because time is right upon us.
Yes.
Thank you.
I just want to add something about this nature based solution because ADB has been leading on this nature based solutions in many of our projects.
What I want to highlight is very case by case.
There is no universal solution for this nature based solution and say in this island countries, what we promote is nature based solution coastal protection.
But for the housing part, in fact, the nature based sometimes doesn't work because they are not resistant to typhon and then if typhoon destroyed the old style of housing, it would create a lot of solid waste.
If you see the solid waste production every time the solid waste suddenly increased after the disaster because the disaster destroy all these old style housing, the nature based housing.
We really want to promote stronger and consistent and more resistant housing.
One case also in Pla what ADB project is doing is to promote the local residents to strengthen their housing, but also adding the solar panel, the solar PV on the roof of the housing.
By strengthen the roof and adding the solar panel, they can be more resistant to typhon, cyclones, and then they can generate the renewable energies.
This is an innovative solution, maybe not exactly nature based solution.
That's what I want to say, we need to look forward and be more proactive and innovative.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Is there a period? No.
I like to just add an idea.
I think many of the last questions that were commented, the nature based solutions committed by the ministers of these countries refer to mobility, the use of materials, the displacement of populations, the impact of some nature phenomena.
This is go through planning.
I think we agree planning is essential, but type of planning, which type of planning and two takeaways the planning topology and on top of that the geography planning.
In that hierarchy of plannings, what we set as a priority to be a sustainable territory, to get cohesion and so on, we need to put in the core the territorial planning, and then just them the sectorial planning.
I think we all agree on the touching these issues, but to place the territorial planning on the top of the pyramid and if in this pyramid we make a mistake on the priorities, the consequences may be unuished.
Thanks to the audience for being attentive and participating.
Thanks to our participants here for their intervention.
There are several key takeaways in terms of the type of planning.
Yes, and the planning has to be specific to the context of small island developing states.
We are limited in terms of our economic activities and we have tourism as the key driver, but it has to be localized and they have provided several workable examples that can be scaled across the small island developing states.
So again, we have, I certainly have learned a lot this afternoon.
If we do nothing from this conference, we have increased our knowledge and in particular, our knowledge about small island developing states, the challenges that we are faced with.
But how do we overcome those challenges? We have our participants who have given very concrete examples from the government, the finance, and civil society and private sector.
Thank you for that.
I want to end on a high note as we started, Gillian, you have left us at a So mesmerized and I want to contend you have set the stage, and I want to continue.
I'm from Jamaica and I've been inspired by Gillian, but I've also been inspired by this gentleman.
I'm going to ask that you have been sitting for about two, 3 hours.
So as we leave this afternoon, can you just leave us with a bit of music, sir? So enjoy this come.
You can't just sit sit there.
You all know Bob Marley, yes.
And he asked us to get together and feel all right.
But want together and.
You can't sit when you hear this music, yes.
I think place for this creation.
One load.
One heart.
Get together and feel right.
One load one heart.
Million come and join as we sing out the audience together and feel right.
Get together and feel right