State of SIDS Report 2026 Launch Event: Defending the Special Case (HLPF 2026 Side Event)

Okay.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, welcome to this side event where we'll be launching the State of SIS Report 2026, which we're very excited about.
My name is Emily Wilkinson.
I'm director of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative Res, which is hosted by ODI Global, the think tank based in London.
Um, we have an hour and a quarter, I think, for this session.
It's being live streamed, so we have some audience online as well.
We are going to be going into some depth on the State of SIS report on a couple of chapters and highlighting what the main findings are, but I'll turn to my colleagues in a moment for that.
But we'll kick off with some welcome remarks from Donald Cronin, who's deputy permanent representative of Ireland to the UN, over to you.
Thank you, Emily, and thank you, Resi, for convening this very important launch event.
We are two years on, as people know from SIDS four in Antigua and Barbuda.
It's a welcome moment, I think, to take stock of where we are at, what has been achieved, and understand how we can accelerate Abbas implementation.
We were delighted to recently launch a partnership with Resi and that builds on our longstanding support to ODI Global and in recognition of Reis excellent work since its establishment, building knowledge on SIDS and amplifying the CID special case as it is known.
Ireland, we're midway through our second strategy of partnership with SIDS, which the government is very committed to, and that focuses on deepening our partnership, supporting climate and oceans, building SIDs capacity, and advocating for SIDs priorities, including currently as president of the European Union until the end of this year, and So our objectives align very much with Reis, and it's a pleasure to work more closely on this.
And the key part of that, together with our UK colleagues and great to work with them is the launch of this inaugural state of SIDS report.
So this report, as you'll see, is the first synthesis report of research on sustainable development in SIDS.
It's the product of, I would say, significant consultation with SIDs policymakers, with development partners, with academics.
And it will be a valuable contribution to make the wider SIDS ecosystem.
And really our congratulations to Resi and all those who supported it.
Today, we're very much looking forward to insights from those who are engaging with SIDs SIDs themselves, as we look at the progress that is being made, what some of the opportunities are and what some of the challenges are and very much appreciate one of the main thrusts of the report which talks about not looking at seeds primarily or solely through the focus of vulnerability, but a value, value that they bring, value that they have and opportunities that are available there, which is very important to concentrate on as well.
For us as Ireland, we continue to support SIDS in real and practical ways on the climate area, for example, through the Asian Development Bank.
We have a trust fund on climate change and disaster resilience, for example.
We also have a number of initiatives in building capacity, be it statistical capacity or elsewhere, or through our SIDS fellowship program as well.
As I mentioned, advocacy is important as well.
I just want to mention one last thing.
Our Minister for climate will be here next week.
He will be hosting an event with Martian Islands and Tuvalu on the role of governments and civil society and how together we can work to decarbonize island nations.
As you may have heard, Ireland and Tuvalu are both co hosting next year the summit on the movement away from fossil fuels, the first of which was held this year, and that's very important for us.
Also the fifth form of the SIDs Global Business Network, which takes place in Maldives in August.
We're very happy to support that as well, including civil society and government participation in that.
With those few words, I'll hand back to you, Emily, and look forward to the discussion here today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I'm not sure if the live stream is working.
I just got a note about it.
I'm not sure if anyone in the AV team can support with that.
Let's move on to a presentation.
I'm going to ask my colleagues, Alia, Malefa and Matt Bishop to take us through some of the highlights of the statuses report, but really starting with a bit more on the process because we've been working on the report with the assistance of some people in this room and many other partners for about a year.
Um, so it's been an intense process and a lot of papers and research have been reviewed for this report, and the report is supported by the government of Ireland and the government of the UK, so we're very grateful to both for making it possible to produce this flagship report.
And with that over to Eora for your presentation.
Thanks.
Thank you, Emily.
Hello everyone.
Milo Lollo Lily.
My name is Ellie Omalfa.
I am a senior research fellow at Monash University and I also work as a program manager for the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative, which is Resi.
I'll just spend a few minutes briefly introducing the status report as a publication from Resi.
So the status report, when the resee team envisioned the status this report, it was seen as an opportunity to create a single authoritative synthesis of research on SID sustainable development.
Every year, hundreds of research papers are published by academics on SIDS across a range of disciplines, especially in social sciences.
Um, These publications and sources of data represent a big resource for policymakers, given that data on SIDS is limited and that original research is costly to procure and especially in small territories.
Of course, we envisioned that the State of SIDS report would be seen as a one stop shop publication that collates, reviews, synthesizes and translates the latest academic and policy research on SIDS for SIDS and their partners.
We envisioned this with a couple of key performance indicators.
The first being that we would understand trends in policy making for SIDS, but also to bridge the gap between science academia and policymaking circles.
A way that the team thought we could effectively do this, and I say this while I'm just realizing how small the print is up there.
But a way that the team thought we would sorry, a way the team thought we would effectively allow this bridging to happen was to align the themes and thus the body chapters of the state of SIDS report to the core themes of the Antigua and Barbuda agenda for SIDS.
The Abs.
The hope was to engage policymakers in identifying common enduring and emerging challenges and pathways to collective action.
So with the structure of the report, it's comprised of seven chapters altogether of approximately 10,000 words.
I mentioned that the report is set to align with the ABS.
You'll see from Chapters two to five that they follow items A to D in Section two of the ABAS, that is building resilient economies, safer and more equitable societies, secure futures through energy transition and environmental protection.
Chapter six of the state of SIS report outlines the means of implementation of policy for SITS.
Um, it includes empirical data gathered specifically for the chapter via survey to high ranking public servants in this countries.
I just want to note also that the QR code allows you to head to the status report webpage, which is called an experience and is pretty cool.
Hopefully I have the time to show you, but if not, please look at it on your phones.
Then I would also like to note that the report was originally intended to be a synthesis of academic and policy literature.
Uh, which I mentioned.
But you will find, however, that although each chapter may be read individually, a lot of work, I peer review has gone into ensuring that the state of SITS report has a point to make and a through line, and that has eventuated to be the defending of the SID special case, which was a theme of discussion at the SIDS future forum this year.
Then finally, just a few points on the process of producing this publication.
The state of SIDS report is authored by a range of prominent academics who produce research on SIDS and who are from SIDS countries.
We aimed for author teams with a variety of contributors from complementary regional and thematic experiences.
The chapter teams had up to five people in them, usually four in a team led by one to two lead authors.
They liaise directly with us and also with their teams on narrative and structure.
Um, those teams have reviewed over 500 texts, both books, articles, and policy to draw on the latest research combined with their own data analysis.
I also just want to briefly mention the rigorous peer review process that we undertook.
It included many late night cross time zone meetings, many edits, both for structure and readability.
Once the chapter teams were put together, we had a rough draft and a first draft that were received by Monash who provided keyword searches in literature review as well.
The first drafts were sent on to the res team for review, as well as res affiliates to review and provide consultative advice.
Then the teams produced a second draft.
These were reviewed by Monash, and at the same time, preliminary findings of the state of Ss report were presented to colleagues at the Pacific Islands Forum in Janara and at the Mona Blue Pacific Pavilion and Car Coon Pavilion at Cop 30 in Blem.
Those were September and November 2025 respectively.
Then in January 2026, the author teams produced fine drafts which were then sent to the res team for review.
These were presented to the SIDS future Forum at Wilton Park in 2026.
Then finally, these team reviewed those chapters in light of feedback received by colleagues at the SIDS Future Forum and then worked directly with chapter teams to align the chapters to a narrative and through line that I mentioned before it went to copyright typesetting and design.
That process may have altered a little bit from the beginning, but it was to the benefit of the report.
Now, I think I might have gone over time, but I encourage you to continue looking at the website.
I also don't want to ruin, I don't want to create tech issues.
I'm just going to hand over to Matt now to speak on the next section.
Thank you.
Okay.
Hi everybody.
I just wanted to start by saying that this is probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever worked on in my career.
We've spent five years or so building resie and producing lots of publications and lots of outputs.
Emily has been making great films.
We've got a brilliant podcast called Small Islands Big Picture.
There'll be an episode on this where we talk to some of the authors of the chapters, which will be coming out quite soon.
Um, but it was a huge undertaking and it started off as an idea after the very first SIDS Future Forum in 2024, just before SIDS fall.
A few of us were sat upstairs in the cafeteria here working out what we were going to do next.
How do we build on the SIDS Future Forum, and how can we make a contribution to supporting ABAS implementation.
We had this idea of doing a report that dovetails with the SIDS Future Forum every two years, which would basically try and synthesize this massive evidence and analysis the people working, particularly within the UN SIDS policy space and orbiting around it, that they don't have the time to digest themselves.
They don't have the time to read lots of academic papers.
We could do that precisely because we have this huge network of people across disciplines, across regions, across issue areas that we could get together over a sustained period of time to produce this thing.
I reckon I've read this report cover to cover three times in different formats.
Some chapters I've read much more than that and I've spent a lot of time editing them and working with the teams and drafting other bits of it.
But it's been a huge undertaking, but we think it's a really important and significant piece of work.
I'm just going to very briefly situate some of the intellectual argument.
Then I'm going to do a deep dive into one of the chapters, Chapter four.
Each of our launch events, we're going to be deep diving into a different chapter as we go.
The introduction begins, and as Ellie said, we tried to argue this clear line throughout the report.
The introduction begins by posing these five big picture questions and substantiating them and making a case for why we need to think so seriously about them.
The first is this idea of the SID special case potentially being under threat.
Some within the multilateral space aren't as convinced by the idea that SIDs are distinctly or uniquely vulnerable in a way that they once were.
The second is thinking about how the global order is changing and what changing geopolitics means for SIDs where they have to navigate this less permissive global order while seeking to preserve and reform multilateralism.
Third is thinking about the CIDs development options.
What are the things that CID stakeholders actually want? This was distilled directly from the conversations at the CIDs future Forum.
The idea is that they want new approaches to doing things.
They want less extractive economies.
They want to be able to seize emerging opportunities in AI and other sectors.
They want to generate greater productive capacity.
They want to build greater cross regional collaboration and learning.
The fourth is thinking more explicitly about something that I mentioned this morning in the in the session in the other room, which is this idea that the way the SIDS agenda is often framed is that there's an act of solidarity with vulnerable states by providing support to SIDS.
We want to argue in this report, and this comes right the way through it is that actually investing in CIDID is an investment in global public goods, international diversity and the long term sustainability of humanity as a whole.
This isn't just a private benefit for CIDs when SIDs are supported, everybody wins.
Then the final one is thinking about how on the basis of the analysis in the report, we can and should defend the CID special case.
I'll come back to that in a moment.
Chapter four, which was lead authored by Kalim Shah, who's based at the University of Delaware, is essentially anchored on the same Abas chapter really.
Each of the chapters follows one of the Abas chapters.
The key top level message from this that Kalim argues is that SIDs need to urgently accelerate the transition to climate proofed and integrated energy, water, transport systems, but there are big trade offs between financing, reliability, and delivery between more centralized and decentralized infrastructure.
And there's a set of deeper trade offs as well between the scale and flexibility of different infrastructural systems, the capital intensity and adaptability within them, and the short term reliability versus long term resilience.
Sometimes CDs have to make very, very invidious choices between all of these different things.
In the rest of the chapter, the argument is that the consequences of making these different choices where you have small populations, geographic dispersion and constrained fiscal space are much more heightened than they are in bigger states, right? You make a decision to invest in a particular piece of energy infrastructure, the sunk costs are enormous.
That can have long term consequences if it's the wrong choice.
You can't just jump out of it in a small society, particularly if you've made that investment in a distant island in an archipelagic state.
Infrastructure systems often serve entire national populations and lock countries into enduring development pathways.
Again, in contrast to a bigger state where you might have in the US hundreds of regional energy systems.
In a small island developing state, you might have one thing and you've got to get that choice right.
There are a whole set of infrastructural dilemmas as well that face seeds then across these three areas.
In the chapter, the team unpicked them quite a bit.
When it comes to energy, seeds are highly electrified.
Many of them are moving towards 100% electrification, but they're also dependent on expensive fossil fuels in many cases, apart from the handful that are energy producers.
In some seeds, renewables are growing, centralized grids are generating economies of scale, but they also concentrate risk, particularly in a exogenous shock scenario.
And while decentralized community based energy systems can also be more resilient and a number of seeds are exploring these kinds of things.
Overall though grid innovation is reducing fossil fuel dependence, and this picture is changing quite rapidly.
So again, you've got really significant experiments now, hydropower in Fiji, geothermal in Dominica, which could potentially supply much of the Eastern Caribbean with chap energy, eventually floating solar panels in the Syslls, lots of innovation is taking place in seeds in the energy space.
When it comes to water, as we know, seeds face extreme exposure to sea level rise and all of the consequences of that, and also declining freshwater resources in many cases.
They also face these really big tensions in terms of what they can do about it.
Desalination plants, pipe distribution, big ticket investments can offer reliable supply, particularly to urban centers where you've got concentrated populations, but they can be capital and carbon intensive.
At the same time, decentralized systems which are you know, expanding all the time across many seeds, rainwater harvesting, household storage tanks, community treatment plants can be more adaptable, but they face maintenance challenges quite often.
It's difficult to keep them well maintained after the initial investment.
When it comes to transport, as we know, sids depend on external connectivity to a greater extent really than many other states, relatively speaking, but they face daunting infrastructure costs.
The sunk costs of building transport infrastructure are enormous.
Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, built an international airport a few years ago, Argyle that costs over 100% of GDP.
Um, this is a staggering amount of money that you have to sink into these big infrastructure investments.
Inter Ireland and other kinds of external connections entail huge sunk costs while retrofitting and climate proofing high risk coastal infrastructure is essential, urgent, difficult, and expensive.
Nonetheless, more and more investment is shifting towards more reliable climate resilient ports, aviation, maritime systems, but this is quite patchy across CDs.
The key argument that Klim and his colleagues try to make in this chapter is really that all three of these different bits of the infrastructure system influence each other.
The question they pose really is, how can we design systems that balance Reliability and efficiency with flexibility and resilience under conditions of climatic uncertainty and fiscal constraint, while also dealing with the imperative of decarboniizing, which itself imposes a whole set of quite significant sunk costs.
A couple of diagrams that I pulled out of the chapter here.
The first one shows that in many cases, compared to the rest of the world, seeds are still over dependent on oil, gas, and coal, hydrocarbons.
Even though we are starting to see a greater amount of renewables come into the mix, but the barriers to this is still quite significant and they aren't just financial.
They're also historical.
Some seeds are still locked into grid agreements that were negotiated in the very early post colonial period with monopoly service providers that are unwilling to give up their entrenched vested interests within those societies.
The second one is install renewable energy capacity for all seeds.
As you can see, solar energy in particular is growing quite rapidly, and that's something to be celebrated, but it's still not really occurring fast enough or as fast as we might like it too.
The rest of the chapter then looks at the knowledge gaps and the argument that Kalim and his colleagues make here is that there are three things we need.
We need better evidence, and this is something we hear a lot and we heard it a lot this morning.
More data is needed to guide investment and identify what works.
We need integrated planning, we need these systems to be planned together in a holistic way.
We need greater finance and capacity with easier access to affordable finance and technology and technical support to leverage the infrastructure opportunities that exist.
The key message, which again was something I said this morning is that the world does not need to invent solutions for SIDS.
They know what they want to do in many cases.
They just need help to scale the solutions that are already being developed and the data that is required to fill that gap is absolutely central and I've taken a little quote here from the chapter where they say that gaps matter not simply because data are incomplete, because uncertainty in small, highly exposed economies, I should say exposed there, magnifies risks.
Finally, just very briefly coming on to the conclusion, we make again, dovetailing with the introduction to the report a series of quite big claims in order to start a debate amongst the stakeholder community.
The first one is we make an argument as to why the special case must be defended and we suggest that this should be on the basis not just a vulnerability.
Vulnerability really matters, but it's also on the basis of value, the fact that SIDs generate an outsized but unmeasured contribution to global public goods.
The second is that SIDS need transformation, not simply resilience.
They need to be supported to increase the capacities that are required to generate meaningful structural transformation of their economies and societies.
The third point is what I said just now, that the value of SIDS lies in their contribution to humanity.
They make an outsized contribution, and I'll come back to that in a moment.
The fourth is that delivering the ABS itself requires structural reform, not just incremental assistance.
There are a number of suggestions that we make here for things that we might start thinking about in terms of how to improve the multilateral environment in ways that benefit the implementation of the Abs.
The final point really is that knowledge, partnerships, collective action are crucial.
One thing we keep hearing repeatedly from our partners is that more people working in this space want to have better, more institutionalized lesson sharing and knowledge sharing across regions.
If I can just end with a quote from the report, is taken from the conclusion.
We make this quite provocative argument towards the end where we question whether SIDS are actually subsidizing global sustainability, rather than being thought of as countries that benefit more than their GNI per capita would suggest from the support that they get, we suggest that the opposite is actually true.
We argue that SIDs generates substantial global public value well beyond that which accrues to them.
But this is neither meaningfully captured in existing data nor effectively compensated by financing mechanisms.
Rather than being viewed as net recipients from a generous multilateral system, SIDs are actually net contributors to a potentially miserly one.
Plenty of evidence in the report supports this claim from unpaid domestic care work that reproduces their populations, communities, and cultures to international biodiversity protection and ocean stewardship that provides a core public good.
This potentially represents, in our view, a massive systemic distortion with significant political implications.
What is not measured is not financed and somebody said exactly this this morning in the session.
What is measured is not financed and what is not financed is not sustained.
The policy implication is that we therefore need a radical expansion and rethinking of what actually counts.
As value, placing natural social and care based contributions on the balance sheet and linking them to financing mechanisms.
Without this seeds will be treated as low productivity economies still rather than high value systems operating under structural constraints, which could by implication, be alleviated.
That's where we think at least the conversation could go over the next couple of years to thinking a bit more expansively about how we evidence and make a case for the wider value of seeds to humanity as a whole.
I'll stop there.
Thank you.
Thanks very much, Matt.
There's really a lot to dive into in this report and Matt's provided a really useful starting point there.
I really encourage everybody to have a look at the report, scroll through, download chapters which are of particular interest.
Maybe we can come back and look at the report online in a second.
Um, But I want to welcome panelists who we've asked to reflect on the key messages of the report and respond to a couple of questions in relation to that and what's being discussed and proposed and some of the provocations in the report.
We have a number of panelists who kindly Um, offered to provide some remarks, Ambassador Tone from Tonga, we have Ambassador Helen Young from the United Kingdom and Special Representative the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Kamal Kishu.
I think we will have Ambassador Webson from Antigua and Barbuda joining us shortly.
Um, so I think I'll start with a question for you, Kamal, if I may.
Because we've had a bit of a zoom in on some of the infrastructure, energy security issues in that chapter and some of the progress that is also being made.
So what I wanted to ask you is given the capacity constraints that Ss face in designing and delivering really integrated resilient infrastructure, what approaches do you think have proven most effective in building lasting systems that can really advance and improve national and regional infrastructure.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Emily, for that question and also a great piece of work you've led, and I had the pleasure of participating first event of the year, which is on this.
So it's nice that before the middle of the year, we have a great output, which will frame the conversations.
I really like what you said that if we look carefully, its subsidizing sustainability of the world.
I always give the example of Caribas Caribas.
There is no point in Tarawa, the capital of Caribas where you can't see the sea.
You know, everywhere.
It's such a small piece of land, but the oceans that it is responsible for is larger than size of India.
So it's managing that resource for everyone, not just for themselves.
So now coming to your question, I think it's a very big challenge.
On one hand, we have a lot of infrastructure deficit in many of the states.
On the other hand, there is the issue of capacity as to how do we invest in infrastructure there such that it leads to more sustainable outcomes.
My assessment, there are three things that need to happen.
The first thing that really needs to happen is that while there is a hard investment, there is investment in actually upstream work in building institutional capacity to have a robust conversation about what infrastructure, for what purpose, for what time horizon to deliver what kind of services.
A lot of the times that is lacking, where the development partners have invested in doing that soft work, I think we've had better outcomes.
Many of the SIDS, for example, they are using building codes imported from other countries without really adapting them to their own risk context.
I think that is something very essential that we do that soft institutional strengthening work alongside hard investment.
It's not one after the other, but that's one thing.
The second thing is that a bit more integrated approach to risk management, there are people working on uh, climate risk.
There are people working on disaster risk, including the disasters emanating from geophysical hazards such as tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes.
I think in no country we can afford fragmentation, but particularly in cs, we cannot.
I think because, you know, you have you know, just the sheer number of people is limited.
So an integrated, comprehensive approach to risk management is absolutely essential.
And my third point would be that some of the discussion on resilient infrastructure needs to happen at the level of investment itself.
When you're planning when you're coming out with an investment pipeline, how do we ensure that we have that 2% or 3% or 5% extra in that pipeline for building resiliency.
Whether that is financed from the domestic resources or from, you know, multilateral development banks, wherever it is, I think S in many ways very progressive.
So it is not too much of a stretch to imagine where resilience and the notion of resilience is hardwired in upstream financial planning, investment planning in the country.
So if we did these three things, we will move the needle towards resilience in infrastructure systems in a sustainable way.
Thank you very much.
Maybe we can come back to the question of finance and financing resilient infrastructure in a moment.
I want to address the next question to Ambassador Tonic.
We are now two years on from the SIDS war Conference and the launch of the Antigume Barbuda Agenda for SIS.
In a way, this report serves as a baseline.
It's what we know about conditions and challenges and progress in SIDs around the start of the year the current decade for SIDS.
How do you think that CIDs have been working towards creating some of the structural mechanisms to deliver on the ABAS themes? Because there's a lot in the ABAS and it is very ambitious.
How do you see progress today? Thank you very much, Emily, for moderating our session and of course asking me that question.
For those who attended the previous session with you and Tessa, forgive me.
I'll be making the same remark with regards to this particular question because I feel it's spot on in terms of addressing that question.
The interest here, of course, Emily, is how to How do we look at implementing ABAS, accelerating it in view of the report? Of course, congratulations on the launching of the State of SITS report 2026.
So doing a little bit of a stock take, we know that that is now two years on from SITS four and the launch of ABAS in 2014, SITS have been working hard towards creating structural mechanisms to deliver on ABAS and let me mention some of the work that SITS have done in this regard.
Firstly, SITS have advocated for vulnerability to be recognized alongside income.
SITS have called on the international financing systems to reflect vulnerability and resilience needs, not simply GDB per capita.
SITS have strongly advocated for MVI to become an operational tool for concessional finance, debt treatment, climate finance access, and graduation decisions.
Secondly, CIDs have sought for investment in institutional strengthening.
Greater investment is needed in public administration, data systems, digital government, national planning systems, and local implementation capacity.
So for CIT strengthening, institutions may offer the greatest return on investment.
Third, CIDs have sought to build predictable and long term partnerships.
SIDs benefit most from multi year financing, flexible funding windows, reduced reporting fragmentation, and support that can adapt rapidly when shocks occur.
SIDs need financing that matches the long term nature of institution building.
Short project cycles rarely build sustainable capacity.
Fourth, seeds have sold to accelerate the renewable energy transition.
Dependence on imported fossil fuels remain one of our greatest vulnerabilities.
The current energy shop should be a wake up call.
Renewable energy transition is at the heart of building resilience in SIDS.
Many CDs are now looking to transition to more sustainable energy sectors where improved energy efficiency and renewable energy play an increasing role.
Seed stock is an initiative among member countries of the Alliance of Small island states or EOs.
To help Cs transform their energy sectors and address adaptation to climate change.
CDS stock actively supports ABAS by spearheading the energy transition, expanding the blue economy, and driving climate action across CDs.
Their work focuses on economic diversification and facilitating access to renewable and ocean energy technologies.
I, if I may add, as permanent representative of Tonga, am representing the Pacific region As the current chair of the Executive Council of SdSock, an honorable Ferttil as Prime Minister of Tovalo is representing the Pacific region as the president of the ninth session of the SdStock Assembly.
The tenth session of the SdStock Assembly is coming very soon.
It's being scheduled for the 24th of September 2026.
I'm glad that Matthew covered quite well the point about renewable energy, and of course, that is the way to go forward in terms of the perspective of SIDS.
My last point in reply to your question, Emily, is that SIDS have sought to move from crisis response to resilience investment.
The cost of prevention is significant lower than the cost of repeated recovery.
Every dollar invested in resilience reduces future humanitarian and reconstruction costs.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I think if Ambassador Webson would like to come in on this question as well, that would be great.
Of course, yes.
Absolutely.
The question is, Two years on from the SIDS FOR conference and the launch of the ABS, how have SIDs been working towards creating the structural mechanisms to deliver on the ABS theme? How are things going, I guess is the question.
I think you had suggested that you would like to respond to this question.
I'm happy to give you a minute.
Obviously, we're only two years in, but time is passing by very quickly, and there's really a lot to do to make progress on this agenda.
So in his introduction, Matt was talking about some of the progress which is already highlighted in the status his report.
And we would be certainly interested in your feedback when you have a chance to read the report.
Okay.
Are you happy to go? Yeah, I would say First of all, thank you very much and thank you for organizing this.
And again, I would like to compliment the authors of the report because I think this report itself is a good marker for us to begin to look at where we are, where we are come from in SIDS four since SIDS four and more importantly, to keep the focus on ABAS over the next several years.
I would expect this report to be updated in 2029 when they have the halfway review.
Of SDS four.
So two years on from from the SidS four event and the launch, I believe Ab Abas We have seen some progress, and one of the I guess one of the main things is we now have unlike the previous strategies, we now have a mechanism, a tool, and it's being developed and peddled by some of the UN agency that we could use.
So there's there's some structure that is being put that we could measure the progress of CIDPOR.
So we have the and it's built the tool is built very much along the line of the SDGs, so it doesn't create extra pressure extra pressure on the islands themselves.
We're moving slowly, but we are seeing also some policy discussions being built using ABAS as an institutional base.
And for us, that is important because we know that the SDGs finishes in 2030.
We know that we wouldn't have covered it, but we know that ABA is based somewhat around the SDGs as well.
And if we could see policy and we are having a lot of discussions in the region about policy And linking ABAS so that we can popularize ABAS so that people at all levels, all walks of life can do it.
So the institutions need so we could begin to look at implementation when we get to the halfway point.
Countries are stepping up to align the national development plans with ABAS.
And as we said, that's very important.
While supporting practical delivery mechanisms is coming out of the ABS, we are seeing some practical steps being taken, such as the AOS itself, we have focused on the Center of Excellence, the Data Hub, the IIF that is the Island Investment Forum, and those practical steps, the Center of Excellence operational and the data hub is operational.
The IAF will be launched in a matter of a month, I think, and those are steps that we're taking and to see how we could help in the implementation.
So the focus is on establishing permanent institutions that can strengthen national capacity.
Mobilize investment, improve access to data, and provide sustainable technical assistance.
This represents an important shift from fragmented project based intervention, which is no longer important.
We moved from just project to system based intervention.
The reason why it is important to note that When we do project based intervention, we build capacity of individuals within the countries, and we lose these individuals as they become more skilled to organizations and international institution that can pay a lot more than our national governments can pay.
So by building systems, we are creating capacity building.
So for us, system development is as important as infrastructure development, and we're moving in that direction.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
My next question really picks up from there because I think what is of real interest to advancing the ABS across all of the different thematic areas, including resilient infrastructure and renewable energy systems is, of course, financing models and partnership arrangements.
It's such a strong chapter actually within the statuses report, really looking at what the literature says around the kinds of support that SIDS have received in the past, how that's delivered, um, the outcomes of that.
There really is quite extensive literature on that issue on those sets of issues.
I want to ask some of the partners and maybe start with Ambassador Young.
What kind of financing models and partnership arrangements that really bring together a diverse range of partners and stakeholders have been most effective, do you think in CIDs? How could these be further improved in such a way that they can really scale scaled up investment in resilience in CIDs? Great.
Thank you so much.
Hi everyone.
I'm Helen King.
I am the UK Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council, and I'm delighted to be here with you all.
Thank you so much for all the work that has gone into this excellent report and thank you for the presentation.
What works? I will use my own personal experience, what I've seen in country where I think the most successful models are ones that bring together public finance, the multilateral partners, and by which I'm in the UN, the MDBs, development finance institutions, also with CSOs and academia in a platform that is not dissimilar, I suppose, to the way that we're set up here.
Maybe the table is a bit smaller actually.
But the example of the country that I'm thinking of, we had an excellent conversation whereby a representative, close adviser of the president of the country came with a brown paper envelope.
And the brown paper en Vpe is because it was commercially sensitive information about the pipeline of possible investments.
And I think you have to get to that level of detail, both building that pipeline, but also having active conversations about how you all together with partners and behind country led and strategies and national plans, how we can mobilize that investment and finance.
As we know, limited sources of odor are a very small percentage of the overall international finance available, so we should absolutely be using limited odor, uh, by using the concessional finance to unlock the bigger investments, and that's really the shift in the UK approach, which is shifting from donor to investor.
Um, I think we have had Svia the International Conference on financing for Development, and a big part of that was a global coalition that the UK announced to scale up prearranged finance for disasters, which is 2% of crisis finance currently towards a global target of 20% by 2035.
And then taking that forward, clearly, we want that to make sure that the money is getting to individuals and communities more quickly.
In terms of the how, I think a couple of thoughts.
One is the tone of the partnership.
So the UK is very focused on growth and investment partnerships that are about accessing this broader picture of finance mutual partnerships, trusting partnerships, collaborative partnerships, and helping with and not adding to the pressures on SIDS, and I think that's a very important point that Ambassador Webson made just a moment ago on that.
Secondly, I think the blended finance platforms groups in this configuration with all the different multilateral payers and different actors and the private sector can really help with that project viability discussion and scaling in the finance and that's particularly important in as it's been said because the markets are small, but also there's a perceived risk that may or may not be an actual risk.
I think the point that Matthew made about improving the data on climate and investment risks and actually having evidence rather than the perception of risk is really important.
And so the UK has an example.
It's called Tides.
It's transforming island development through electrification and sustainability, and that is a blended finance fund that brings together public finance and private finance.
Secondly, help on project preparation and pipeline building, as I say, having a really clear set of bankable projects that investors can get behind.
Um, effective partnerships with the development banks, and early stage feasibility studies and technical support.
An example of this is the UK's work on the task force on access to climate finance CDAR.
And then thirdly, risk sharing partnerships is a very important part of our approach and particularly addressing the high cost of capital faced by SIDS.
So instruments like guarantees, insurance, products, prearranged finance, again, sort of making investment more attractive whilst also strengthening the resilience of the system to shocks.
Um, and then I think the final thing to say is that ultimately, the approach that works in my view is to use the concessional finance to be catalytic, and that's the key, getting behind the country program, getting behind the country portfolio of projects.
Sometimes grouping small projects into a sort of portfolio of investments is also helpful because it gives investors a sort of menu of things to choose from.
So I'll leave it there, but lots of good practice out there.
Thank you very much, Ambassador King.
Yeah.
I mean, I really appreciate your point about perceived risk may not be actual risk, and I think that has an influence on the cost of capital.
We're certainly interested in doing more research to look at the the benefits of resilient investments in CIDs because we think that they might be outsized as well.
The cost of investment is higher, but the returns may also be significantly higher, and those need to be factored into all of assessments of risk including by credit rating agencies.
So that's a really important area that I think comes out of the framing of the report as well, that the CIDs offer huge value in many respects.
Thank you very much.
I think it would be good to hear from some of the other panelists on that point as well about, um, What kind of financing models and partnerships are working particularly well for CIS and how can we scale and promote them.
Would anyone like to come in on that question? Yeah.
Maybe come on and then we'll come back to question four.
Thank you, Emily, for that.
On what works and what kind of innovation, what kind of practice we should pursue.
Before that, I just want to say that say a few words in support of prearranged financing.
I think the practice of pre arranged financing in the current form is now 10-years-old.
And we see that it is delivering results.
Ten years ago, if you had said that we will have a system of putting money before something happens, people would say, Come on, you must be kidding.
But now there is enough evidence that it works.
And in prearranged financing in many different ways, we saw what happened after Cyclone Melissa in Jamaica.
Jamaican government had pursued great fiscal discipline in the run up to Melissa, and there was a fear that Melissa would lead to downgrading of their credit rating.
But thanks to financial instruments that were in place, they had quick access to a significant amount of resources, not nearly enough to support reconstruction and recovery, but enough to launch a credible, comprehensive, immediate response, and as a result, they maintained their credit rating.
So I really think that we need to foster and continue to nurture this practice of prearranged finance.
Also, it is important that if it is working, we must not make a dogma out of it.
You know, it should really be responding to real needs and continue to evolve as it has over the last ten years.
Now, directly answering your question, one issue is that attracting when I compare attracting investment into climate change mitigation, the metrics are very clear.
You know what you are financing, what is the amount of clean energy you are going to generate through this investment.
That is not so clear cut in the context of resilience investments because we don't have commonly accepted resilience metrics, we do not have taxonomies.
I think some work on that so that we can be a little bit more objective about it, be more transparent about it so that investors know what is it that they are actually investing in.
I think that is really important.
I think a fair amount of technical work needs to happen there, but it's not just technical work.
It really needs to be supported and a bought into by national governments themselves.
That's indeed that's indeed what they mean when they're talking about resilient investment.
So that's the first point.
The second point is that, uh the history of investing in resilience in SIDS is full of scattered, small, sub optimal projects that they deliver good results in location, but they do not add up to wide resilience of, uh, the sets themselves.
So we've been pursuing this notion of using integrated national financing frameworks.
So, you know, really support at the upstream level, you know, let everyone sing from the same song treat, which is written by the national government, as opposed to, you know, striking your own trumpet or violin or whatever.
So I think that we should explore that a bit more.
And my third and final point is that, whether you're investing in climate action or disaster risk reduction or humanitarian or, uh, supporting SDGs.
All of this really needs to come together.
So I think that's a corollary of my previous point of INFF.
So I think how do we sort of have an integrated view of this? And in all of this, of course, investment must not be determined just by, you know, the size of the economy or, you know, looking at, you know, the income levels, but also using multidimensional vulnerability really to have to avoid any blind spot we might have.
Thank you.
Great.
Thank you very much.
I have one final question, which is about climate finance, which is a bit of a bugbear for SIDs in terms of access, and there continue to be real challenges in accessing climate finance, which should be concentrated in reaching the most CIDs as one of the most vulnerable group of countries.
Ambassador Tone, what practical changes do you think could be made to make climate finance more accessible that also strengthen country ownership and nationally led investment pipelines as Kamal was talking about.
Thank you very much.
I think the question of the finance is a very important one.
But in reply to your question, let me answer it with a focus on the Pacific region and not necessarily in the wider seats family, but of course it does link up to the bigger set.
Making climate finance more accessible than the Pacific requires cutting through periodraic red tape, shifting from complex project by project models, I think that was mentioned by my colleague earlier on, models to programmatic funding and boosting local capacity to manage and implement resilience projects directly.
Some of the practical changes include, one, operationalizing the Pacific resilience Facility or the PRF.
Tonga was selected to host the PRF, a groundbreaking initiative targeted to enhance climate and disaster preparedness across the Pacific Island countries.
The PRF will be the first specific led member owned financing facility designed to generate sustainable investment income for community resilience projects.
The PRF helps communities access climate and disaster resilience funds directly without navigating the heavy administrative burdens of global vertical funds.
Second, streamlining bureaucracy, simplifying the unwieldy technical documents, multiple reporting systems, and duplicated readiness processes currently required by international bodies like the GCF, while maintaining compliance and oversight.
For SITS, capacity constraints remain a major bottleneck.
Small administrations carry disproportionately heavy reporting and implementation burdens.
Many in CIDs have weak statistical systems, limited institutional capacity, fragmented reporting requirements, and high staff turnover.
In many cases, the same small teams are responsible simultaneously for implementation, coordination, reporting, and crisis response.
Third, embedding local advisors, Skating up initiatives like Climate Finance Access Network or CFN, which embeds national advisors with local government ministries to build capacity, streamline project rollout and unlock millions in investment pipelines.
Through hands on capacity building, these advisors train hundreds of local civil servants in climate finance fundamentals, ensuring that the financial expertise remains in country long after their one to two year deployment ends.
Acting as a liaison between developing countries and major institutions like the GCF, advisors bridge the gap by turning early stage climate concepts into bankable investments.
Fourth, enhancing financial management systems.
By integrating climate priorities directly into the national budget processes, such as Fiji's implementation of a budget classification structure, it makes it easier to track and verify climate spending.
Improving the financial management systems in the Pacific Island countries requires careful pacing and sequencing, often emphasizing foundational processes rather than adopting overly complex systems.
Fifth, standardizing regional taxonomy.
I heard my colleague mentioning that earlier on.
This will support the implementation of a unified Pacific climate change taxonomy to improve transparency and mobilize climate finance.
Pacific IN countries face exceptionally high adaptation needs relative to their GDP.
Despite the availability of global funds like the GCF, the region faces disproportionate difficulties in accessing and dispersing capital.
A regional taxonomy addresses these hurdles by providing standardized definitions, enhanced transparency, and streamlined reporting.
And then lastly, diversifying funding sources.
This can be done by leveraging non traditional capital, including philanthropic dog Foundations, green blue bonds, and parametric micro insurance to rapidly disperse relief after extreme weather events.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Ambassador Webson, would you like to comment on that question? Sorry, could you repeat the question again? Yeah, just any remarks you'd like to make about innovative or finance or partnership solutions including improving access to climate finance? Well So I think we've said several times that the islands we need to develop models that will allow.
I want to pick up on a couple of things that my colleague said because I think the discussion on capacity building regarding the financing and the whole is very important.
I think we have to look at how we support systems, the government systems in the islands in order for us to strengthen the whole concept around building capacity.
For us, the most effective models must combine public finance, private investment through blending finance directly with with local but managed and developed by the local that's local capacity.
To my mind, that's that's really important.
Innovation financial mechanisms must help must must be guided by the local capacity and the local conditions.
Again, moving away from just projects into systems.
Otherwise, what we find is we develop a lot of these things and we lose the thing and we lose the capacity shortly after projects are done.
A critical piece for me in the whole financing, it's also recognizing that our islands are smaller, and therefore, we don't attract the kind of finance that we really need all the time because I think we have to cross lines and do a lot of regional partnerships so that pull islands together and I mean even across geographical lines, not just the Caribbean, but if we can build projects that can benefit some islands in the Caribbean maybe and some islands in the Pacific coming together.
And this is a concept that is new and different because we haven't done that, but we need to look at that.
So for me, looking ahead, the platforms, again, the Island Investment forum that we are thinking of is a is a good concept that we are looking at as a model to attracting innovative financing into the islands and into the framework that we are looking towards for sustainable prosperity.
And and we're placing a lot of emphasis on the strategy to make the Island investment forum a real opportunity for seeds across the globe to begin to attract financing in innovative ways, even if it means across geographies, which is new, but could be quite creative.
Great.
Thank you very much.
And we've heard about a lot of really interesting things that are already happening under the Antigu and Barbuda agenda for SIDS and lots of examples of partnerships and financing arrangements that are working, but maybe not quite at the scale that we need them to be yet.
We have a few minutes left.
If there are others who would like to come in to make any reflections on the stage with SIS report or anything that you've heard before we have some closing remarks from Ambassador Seed from Palau and the *** chair.
So please just signal if you would like to speak.
Go ahead.
Thank you so much, Emily, Duarte Valente from the Permanent Mission of Portugal, for those who don't know me.
First of all, a word of congratulations to ODI Resi, but also to Ireland and the UK for this report.
I think it's very thorough.
It certainly will be very useful for those at the United Nations still working on SIDS issues.
Second committee.
An EcoSOC it will inform our discussions and help us push forward the work.
I wanted very briefly to start also by acknowledging the contribution of our own development agency, a colleague, Miguel Galante who contributed to Chapter five.
So grateful for that and for seeing that put in good work.
I won't belabor too much on the conclusions that were shared by Matthew.
I think they're very valid and certainly useful in helping us continuing to advocate for the special case of SIDS.
Many of the areas that are mentioned in the report areas on which we work with SIDS, from the MPI to renewable energies to ocean.
The permanent Representative Tonga mentioned a PRF, Portugal contributed 1 million euros to that, and we're happy to see that now come to fruition and hopefully also to contribute to specific projects partly through UNDP.
Um, I just wanted to also give a last note in our current capacity and seeing here our colleagues from Belize as co chairs of the steering committee for SITS partnerships, where we try to push forward this kind of work.
So our mandate is, you know, running until the end of the year.
It will culminate in the global multi stakeholder dialogue for SITS partnerships.
So certainly that's another area where we can showcase this good work and explore potential partnerships also in that context.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I'm Corin Tromsdorf with the French Solid Waste Partnership.
The partnership would like to share some ongoing reflections on France's island territories as pioneering testing grounds for the circular economy, not as a separate discipline on its own silo, but as an underlying development philosophy.
We've heard how island territories are metabolically vulnerable.
They are almost entirely dependent on imports, local waste disposal options are lacking often and they face additional logistical costs for imports and exports.
However, our French islands constitutional and fiscal frameworks provide them with precisely the tools that mainland France lacks.
As such, they can become pioneers of a circular economy that mainland territories would learn from.
Trees provide a concrete example.
Our islands import short lived tires that cannot be re threaded or regrooved, generating rubber waste that cannot be recycled locally and leading to illegal dumping, breeding grounds for Deng and inkugya.
Banning these tires at port inspections, combined with a rental model that integrates the re reading and regrooving shifts the market towards products that can be managed at the end of their life and creates skilled local jobs.
The actions that are being explored right now are as follows, use the material footprint as a guiding principle for integrated territorial planning and deploy a circular territorial digital twin to use data to manage all aspects of circular economy from intensifying the use of products to recycling, including extending the lifespan of objects.
Another action is implement a bonus malus system upon entry to the territory based on three sustainability classes, lifespan, duration, and disposable, and make access to the island markets conditional on lifespan and repaarability criteria for any goods whose end of life cannot be managed locally.
Introduce an island clause into the specifications of the extended producer responsibilities schemes, which in France, we have 28 off.
If others are thinking along similar lines, it would be great to exchange notes and experiences.
Thank you very much.
I'm not sure if we have a hard stop at 2:30.
We're almost out of time, so if you can be very brief, I would be grateful and then we have some final remarks.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
My name is Sarah Scott Webb.
I represent the World Evangelical Alliance.
I'm also from New Zealand where I lead the Oceania Freedom Network.
We are a regional anti human trafficking network across Al Todo, New Zealand, and the Pacific.
My question is concerning the resilience priorities outlined in the report.
I note that Chapter three identifies sexual and gender based violence as a major issue across SIDS.
Was consideration also given to explicitly including human trafficking? Because while these issues are related, they are not the same and they each require distinct prevention and protection responses.
The report rightly highlights the unique vulnerabilities that face SIDS.
Yet these same characteristics also create opportunities for traffickers and transnational organized crime networks to exploit people and communities.
When sustainable development goals are not achieved, vulnerability to exploitation and human trafficking increases.
Trafficking is both a consequence of vulnerability and a barrier to achieving the SDGs.
My question was, how will the recommendations of this report ensure that preventing human trafficking and strengthening resilience to transnational organized crime are integrated into SIDS resilience Building rather than be treated separately.
Thank you, and thank you for all your work.
Thanks very much.
We probably don't have time to go into a thorough response to your question, but if we'd like to have a conversation after the session, we'd be very happy to discuss that with you.
Of course, the report is not as comprehensive as we would love it to be, but it's already 250 pages too long.
So perhaps for further iteration, that's something that we could look at.
Thank you.
Okay, for some closing remarks, I'd like to invite Ambassador Seed, Par of Palau and Eosis chair, over to you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Moy.
Excellency, distinguished colleagues.
As we bring this discussion to a close, let me thank all our panelists, our partners at Rezi and our co organizers, the governments of Tonga, Ireland, the UK, the Maldives, Antigon Barbuda, and the UN DRR, for bringing us together today.
Today's discussion has reinforced that the special case of small island developing states is reflected in our geography, our real exposure to external shocks, our reliance on healthy oceans, and the disproportionate impacts of climate change, debt burdens, and global economic volatility.
These structural vulnerabilities persist regardless of income levels, and they continue to shape the development pathways of every CID.
The state of SIDS report comes at an important moment as we move to implementing the Antigua and Barbuda agenda for SIDS.
This report provides more than a snapshot of where we stand.
It can complement the monitoring and evaluation framework and measuring progress, identify gaps, and strengthen accountability for delivering resilient prosperity, But reports alone don't enact change.
What will make the difference is whether the international community is prepared to act on the evidence presented.
For AOSS, that means ensuring that the special case of CID is reflected not only in declarations, but in decisions and in actions.
It means moving beyond outdated measures of development that failed to capture vulnerability, It means expanding access to concessional finance, operationalizing the multidimensional vulnerability index, strengthening national capacities, investing in resilient infrastructure, and delivering on the commitments contained in the MTGuan Barb agenda for CIDS.
The report also reminds us that resilience is not built by CIDs alone.
It's built through genuine partnerships that are founded on trust, solidarity, and country ownership.
Our development partners, international financial institutions, and the wider UN system all have a critical role to play in ensuring that the aspirations of the Abs are translated into meaningful action.
The question is not whether the world can afford to invest in SIDs.
The question is whether the world can afford not to.
Small island developing states have long served as the canaries in the coal mine, sitting on the front lines of the pressing challenges of today on climate, on ocean, on biodiversity, and on sustainable development itself.
When SIDs thrive, they demonstrate what resilience, innovation, and international cooperation can achieve.
When SIDs are left behind, it signals deeper failures in the international system.
Launch of this report must become a call to action, a benchmark for accountability, and a reminder that defending the special case of SIDS ultimately means defending the promise of sustainable development for all.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Just to let everyone know that we are planning to produce a statuses report every two years.
I hope that when we come back and present the next report in two years' time, we will have seen positive changes in the international environment and global governance system that very much shapes Sid's opportunities.
And that we will see the special case having been strengthened and supported.
So I hope that next time we meet and we all here together speaking about the next statuses report, that there will have been significant advances.
Thank you very much for attending this meeting and all our participants.