safety steps

Antigua & Barbuda is host to the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) between May 27-30, 2024.

This event will bring together global experts in topics
for island nations including climate change, economic diversification, social inclusion, and institutional capacity building stakeholders to identify the policy pathways to empower SIDS communities and forge a pathway toward resilience and prosperity.

To be successful, SIDS4 will need clear pathways for island states to overcome a range of challenges: from debt sustainability to decreasing productive capacity, increasingly devastating climatic events, and constraints in accessing climate finance needed to address these challenges.

These solutions should be grounded in the best available science and good practice.

Ahead of this pivotal SIDS4 event, the groundwork was laid at the SIDS Future Forum over the course of a two-day hybrid event in New York co-hosted by the global affairs think tank ODI, which hosts, the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI), the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the UK Government, United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), and Island Innovation.

SIDS Future Forum Held March 4-5 at the seat of the United Nations in New York, the SIDS Future Forum saw
engagement from academic and civil society leaders from around the world.

To guide discussions, RESI commissioned 12 policy-focused research papers offering cutting-edge analysis on the key thematic agendas and challenges outlined in the zero draft of the SIDS4 outcome document, namely:

(i) Resilient Economies; (ii) Safe and Prosperous Societies; (iii) A Secure Future; (iv) Environmental Protection and Planetary Sustainability; as well as (iv) means of implementation.

This analysis will be presented in a way that is radical in ambition, focused in extent, and plausible in terms of recommendations.

These knowledge-sharing sessions elucidated key development challenges and potential solutions for island states. In turn, this helped tie collaborative links between island stakeholders
ahead of SIDS4 in May where a guiding policy structure for SIDS will be agreed for the coming decade.

“Antigua & Barbuda’s vision for this ten-year framework is extremely bold,” commented Tumasie Blair, Antigua & Barbuda’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN during
his opening address at the Future Forum,

“When we started our consultations with various partners, there was a gravitation towards the ideas that Antigua & Barbuda was putting forward in terms of moving away from the traditional ways that the UN would normally look at small states.

For the last thirty years, the UN system has failed SIDS, but the [SIDS Future Forum and SIDS4] is an opportunity for a reset and a rethink of minds.”

The future of SIDS demands dedicated solutions and collaborative action, as H.E. Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Pa’olelei Luteru, Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations and Chair of AOSIS, expressed in an address last year,

“We need to have a tighter, coordinated, and coherent approach to our development. We need to bring the national, regional and global levels together.

Let us start thinking outside the box and formulate our own home-grown solutions to our problems. Let us lead by sharing our experiences and best practices within and across our sub-regions.”

Chair of the SIDS Future Forum and Director of RESI, Dr Emily Wilkinson urged SIDS and development partners “to consider what a package of measures of assistance would look like for SIDS” as well as “a strategy for elevating SIDS’ special circumstances in international arenas including on debt reform”.

“What we need is genuine partnerships and firm commitments from partners to support implementation of the SIDS agenda” she emphasized.

For further information, please refer to : https://islandinnovation.co/events/sids-future-forum/