Wednesday 31 July 2013

UN committed to helping SIDS


IN recognition of the fact that small island developing states (SIDS) need to develop strategies that will address the specific issues that they face, the UN is making a commitment to their member states to ensure that these SIDS are able to voice these concerns at local, regional and international conferences where these issues are discussed.

This is coming from the Deputy Resident Representative, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Lara Blanco, who spoke at the National Validation Workshop on the Barbados National Assessment Report to the Third International Conference on SIDS recently at the Accra Beach Hotel and Spa in Barbados.

She said that this is why her organisation has partnered with various UN agencies across Barbados and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean to support the preparation of their respective National Assessment Reports (NAR).

Aside from the Caribbean, many of the countries in the other various group of nations such the Pacific, Africa and the Mediterranean are already finalising their respective NAR, as well as hosting meetings amongst themselves to discuss these reports. The outcomes of these meetings would be further discussed at a conference to be held in August of this year in Barbados, said the UN representative.

Meanwhile, the 2014 Samoa conference would provide another avenue for SIDS to voice their concerns on issues that they face, such as preparing and responding to natural disasters, as well as the negative impact of climate change such as sea level rise and how this affects particularly low-lying areas in being able to sustain themselves and even thrive.

“While there is in the Caribbean significant investment in issues such as preparation, response and recovery from the impacts of natural hazards, along with an increasing understanding of the effects of climate change and the definition of physical vulnerability, these concerns need to be further embedded in development and investment decision- making to address resilience in its multiple dimensions. There is greater scope, for example, for social protection mechanisms to be more closely linked to disaster response and recovery and used to enhance such efforts through more effective targeting of both immediate and medium- term recovery initiatives,” Blanco argued.

She said that her organisation is assisting in this area because it recognises that the process leading up to this meeting and implementing the procedures that would be laid out in these reports after 2014 would not be an easy task.

“The SIDS 2014 and the post-2015 process represent the culmination of an ambitious cycle in the international development agenda, and at the same time, a tremendous opportunity to review the priority areas and improve the ways in which we address them.” (PJT)

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