Monday, August 24, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
POLITICS: Small Island States Hope to Resurface on World Stage
Peter Deselaers
- The world’s small island developing countries are preparing to launch sustainable development for a second time.
Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, United Nations member states agreed on a plan to help the small island developing states (SIDS) make economic progress in an ecologically friendly manner.
The Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA) specified a variety of measures to be implemented on issues such as climate change, waste management, energy resources, biodiversity and the development of human capacity.
But many of the plans were never put into action.
”Since the adoption of the BPoA in 1994, SIDS have become even more vulnerable on all three pillars of sustainable development” (economic, social and environmental development), said Mohammed Arrouchi on behalf of the largest coalition of developing countries, the Group of 77, during last year’s session of the U.N. General Assembly.
According to Anwarul K. Chowdhury, the SIDS were unable to implement the programme because of their smallness, remoteness and, hence, a lack of capacity.
”The development of a country is the primary responsibility of that country”, said the secretary general of the upcoming conference to review the BPoA, but ”while the countries start warming up to implement their role, it is the international organisations and the multilateral bodies which can really trigger (development).”
In his speech, Arrouchi criticised the international community for “inconsistent and inadequate” aid to the island states, while the SIDS, he said, were still committed to the plan of action.
Meanwhile their economic prospects have deteriorated with declines in commodity prices, loss of traditional markets and falling levels of development aid and foreign direct investment, added Arrouchi.
Official development aid (ODA) to SIDS fell from 2.3 million dollars in 1994 to 1.7 million dollars in 2001.
”We can certainly say that there has been tremendous efforts on behalf of the small islands”, said Espen Ronneberg, inter-regional adviser for SIDS at the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. He adds, ”there is a certain level of donor support, but it is not what we had expected”.
The ‘Barbados +10′ review will take place this year from Aug. 30 to Sep. 4 in Mauritius. ”The meeting will be a wonderful opportunity for a resurgence of the interest for the SIDS”, Chowdhury told reporters at a press conference in New York.
”These countries get marginalized in global attention.”
From Jan. 26 to 30, SIDS’ representatives will meet in Bahamas, to agree on a strategic paper for the Mauritius conference.
SIDS face the same problems as other countries struggling for a better life for their people, but they get an additional set of challenges.
”Most of these countries are tucked into various corners of the world, very far away from the major trading centres, major centres of activities of the world”, said Chowdhury.
If the states consist of several islands, they might also be dispersed. For example, a flight between the two main Marshall Islands takes about 50 minutes.
These transportation restraints further reduce their place in international markets.
Also, many small islands depend on single commodities, such as coffee, sugar, bananas or fish, as their main export and money-earner. Because of this dependence, any change to the market of those products creates a huge economic upheaval.
”We generally associate (the SIDS) with their idyllic nature and beauty, but we do not consider how fragile their economies and eco-systems are, how vulnerable they are to natural disasters”, said Chowdhury.
For example, in the first week of January a cyclone hit the South Pacific island of Niue. U.N. officials estimate that the resources to clean up and rebuild the island will exceed by three times the value of goods produced on Niue annually.
Thousands of kilometres away, if the sea level continues to rise at its current speed – 10-20 cm in the past 100 years – Malé, capital of the Indian Ocean state of Maldives, will disappear by 2100, according to projections. Even in the best-case scenario, only one-half of the city will be left.
While some scientists argue no conclusive evidence exists that the sea level is rising, most researchers believe there is an increase, due to climate change, the global warming of air and sea.
SIDS are victims of that latter process, to which they contribute little.
”If you reduced all the emissions of greenhouse gases from all the small islands to zero, it still would not make any difference in the global picture”, said Ronneberg, adding that the small islands contribute just 0.12 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The largest polluter is the United States, which has refused to ratify a global treaty, the Kyoto protocol, on cutting emissions.
Island states also face new challenges.
”When the Barbados programme was adapted in 1994, two areas – which have now emerged as major areas of interest and concern – did not exist in that fashion. One is HIV/AIDS”, said Chowdhury. ”The second area is information and communication technology”.
While HIV/AIDS is a growing problem, especially in the Caribbean, the Internet might be one of the first products of globalisation to benefit SIDS, he adds.
”It is felt that the remoteness could be addressed through information technology”, Chowdhury says, suggesting that a potential concrete benefit is E-trade – the global trade in services by Internet. But access to the World Wide Web is still uncommon on many of the islands.
Another promising sector is renewable energy. Most of the SIDS must import petroleum for transport and electricity generation, but at the same time they have a huge potential for wind and solar power.
A car mechanic on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu recently devised a way to use coconut oil to power automotive diesel engines, producing a “clean” energy that might reduce greenhouse gases and also provide a great opportunity for the local economy.
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