European Union
High Level Political Forum on sustainable Development
Session 9 "The Samoa Pathway: translating vision to action, 1st July, 10am
Draft EU&MS Speaking Points
I have the honour to speak on behalf of the EU and its Member States
Because of the time constraints, I will only deliver the parts of the statement that are the most relevant for our interactive discussion today; the full version of the statement will be posted on the HLPF/ECOSOC and on the EU websites
The EU and its Member States have a longstanding cooperation and a tradition of partnership with SIDS. We supported their efforts to address the specific vulnerabilities and challenges they face. We have been and remain a leading donor and key trading partner. Well before the Samoa Conference, we helped establishing many partnerships launched with SIDS and many other stakeholders.
At the Conference, we provided concrete examples on how the EU and its Members States have been supporting SIDS. We have actively participated in the Partnerships Multistakeholder Dialogues and in many side events, several of them co-organized with the EU Member States.
In Samoa, the EU signed with the Governments of 21 SIDS from the Pacific, Caribbean and Africa the bilateral cooperation programs that we call National Indicative Programmes for the period 2014-2020, with a value of around €340 million. We have now signed almost all the National Indicative Programmes with SIDS countries. Just a few weeks ago we signed the Regional Indicative Programmes for the Pacific and the Caribbean. And this adds up with all relevant bilateral cooperation programs of the individual Member States of the EU.
Many of the priorities areas and commitments from the Samoa Pathway are covered by those national and regional programmes, to which we have allocated almost €2.0 billion for the period of 2014-2020. To this we must add the support to EU's thematic programmes and the intra-ACP programme, from which many SIDS countries strongly benefit. That shows our continued support to SIDS and the special partnership relationship we maintain with SIDS countries.
We are now looking in concrete terms at how the EU programmes,projects, and other policy initiatives also relate to the specific commitments of the Samoa Pathway and the partnerships with SIDS, since the Samoa Pathway was adopted at the start of EU's new cooperation programming framework. It is a process involving many departments and the EU delegations in SIDS countries that will take some time.
Mister chair, now let me highlight some priority areas of the Samoa pathway that we are particularly active in.
Climate change is a common political priority of the EU and SIDS. AOSIS and the EU are long term allies in the fight against climate change and should continue to work together, in particular towards the agreement in Paris. We have undertaken to dedicate at least 20% of EU's international cooperation budget to climate change. Moreover, SIDS are priority partners in the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) which has been supporting around 25 SIDS countries through our bilateral and regional programmes amounting to €100 million, one third of GCCA funding. The new phase, the GCCA+, will see further allocation of €370 million until 2020 and SIDS will remain priority partners with their share in the programme maintained.
A major priority of the GCCA+ is the integration of climate change with disaster risk management, link which was well stressed at Samoa. SIDS have been benefiting from disaster management funding within our EU-ACP cooperation programmes on Natural Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Resilience amounting to more than €100 million and implemented in partnerships with WB and the UN. To this adds our humanitarian assistance through Disaster Preparedness Programme and the Emergency Response Mechanism.
We welcome the new Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction which now firmly anchors risk management as a key element of sustainable development including reference to SIDS vulnerabilities. The EU is also reorienting the support to make resilience a priority in cooperation with countries most vulnerable to natural disasters.
Another area of priority cooperation with SIDS is sustainable energy, which inter alia contributes to the UNSG initiative on Sustainable Energy for All. We have provided support to several SIDS for development of renewable energy and energy efficiency strategies at national and regional levels in order for them to establish a sustainable, affordable and reliable supply of energy.The EU will continue these effort the next 6 years with further €55 million financing sustainable energy projects in 11 SIDS, on top of EU Member States own efforts. We are happy to acknowledge that 9 SIDS have chosen energy as main focal sector of our bilateral cooperation.
We know how important the preservation of SIDS biodiversity and their unique and irreplaceable eco-systems are to our planet’s future. We welcome the outcome of the International Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change last October in Guadeloupe, which provides a roadmap for strategy orientation and operational actions for increasing resilience, tackling biodiversity loss and climate adaptation and mitigation, and developing both the green and the blue economy. In this context, the EU's has launched the BEST Initiative benefiting EU's Outermost Regions and Overseas Countries, of which many cooperate and launched partnerships with SIDS states, notably in the context of GLISPA and OCEANIA 21.
Another priority regards oceans and the sustainable management of fishery resources. For the period 2014-2020, we have renewed or reinforced our cooperation in this area, notably in relation to the Pacific and Indian oceans, under the regional and bilateral programmes through DEVFISH2 (Pacific Ocean) and SMARTFISH2 (Indian Ocean). There are plans to extend programmes to Western Africa, which would benefit SIDS in this area. In addition, the EU has concluded Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement with 7 SIDS countries which have objectives that relate to Samoa Pathway commitments and provides financial support for its implementation.
On two other areas which important for several SIDS countries, debt and trade, the EU provides support to WB Programmes benefiting SIDS countries, such as the WB managed Debt Management Facility, which is envisaged to be renewed through the newly set Debt Management Facility II, as well as the WB Trade Facilitation Programme, besides the EU's direct support to several programmes and projects on trade-related assistance through EU's bilateral and regional cooperation with SIDS.
Mister chair, we may not have time to detail our contribution to the second question on: "How can we further strengthen the partnerships committed in Samoa?", but let me just touch upon a few ideas we are exploring:
The EU has always supported a focus on partnerships. The Partnership Multistakeholder Dialogues, the online SIDS Action Platform, were a useful information tool for registering partnerships, but we need additional action to strengthen existing and new partnerships, as stated in the note by the secretariat.
Firstly, we stress the importance of national multistakeholder dialogues for national ownership, which should also relate to the proposed national processes for reporting on implementing and achieving the post-2015 agenda. Secondly, we also support the realization of the regional multistakeholder dialogues in connection under the coordination of the UN Regional Commissions or other appropriate regional body which should link with the suggested regional reviews on the post-2015 agenda. Thirdly, we can also encourage the organization of an annual multistakeholder SIDS Partnership Dialogue in the margins of the annual meeting of the High level Political Forum under the auspices of ECOSOC, as appropriate.
All those meetings will contribute to strengthening partnerships with and among SIDS. It will be important that they take account of the principles that the EU has been stressing for overall follow-up and review of the post 2015 agenda, such as national ownership, accountability, inclusive and participatory system with involvement of all concerned stakeholders, building on existing systems and making best use of existing resources, foster exchange of best practices and mutual learning, promote peer reviews at regional level, etc.
While underlying those specific recommendations, we are in fact addressing the 3rd question ("How will the review of post-2015 development agenda fit together with the review of Samoa Pathway implementation in the future").
The EU is pleased to see that the current drafts of the Financing for Development Conference and the zero-draft for post-2015 both recognizes the specific challenges faced by the SIDS, the importance of the SAMOA pathway and the need to link the follow-up and review processes in order to avoid duplications.
The reflection and discussions now taken place in the HLPF are very relevant in this context.
A final word, mister chair, to highlight the recent decision of the Council of Ministers of the ACP countries which approved the creation of a SIDS Forum within the ACP framework. This gives the SIDS within ACP the weight they carry and increases their visibility in Brussels. We support the aim of that SIDS Forum to focus on addressing SIDS concerns, as well as on implementing the SAMOA pathway.
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