Small Island Developing States

• UNGA to conduct a High-Level Review of the SAMOA Pathway in 2019

• SAMOA PATHWAY - High-Level Midterm Review 2019

• Inter-regional Meeting, Apia, Samoa

UN MEMBERS (38)

Atlantic, Indian Ocean and South China Sea (AIS) (9)

Bahrain

Cabo Verde

Comoros

Guinea-Bissau

Maldives

Mauritius

Sao Tomé and Principe

Seychelles

Singapore

Caribbean (16)

Antigua and Barbuda

Bahamas

Barbados

Belize

Cuba

Dominica

Dominican Republic

Grenada

Guyana

Haiti

Jamaica

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Lucia

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Suriname

Trinidad and Tobago

Pacific (13)

Fiji

Kiribati

Marshall Islands

Micronesia (Federated States of)

Nauru

Palau

Papua New Guinea

Samoa

Solomon Islands

Timor-Leste

Tonga

Tuvalu

Vanuatu

NON-UN MEMBERS/ASSOCIATE MEMBERS OF REGIONAL COMMISSIONS (20)

American Samoa

Anguilla

Aruba

Bermuda

British Virgin Islands

Cayman Islands

Commonwealth of Northern Marianas

Cook Islands

Curacao

French Polynesia

Guadeloupe

Guam

Martinique

Montserrat

New Caledonia

Niue

Puerto Rico

Sint Maarten

Turks and Caicos Islands

U.S. Virgin Islands

A key request from the outcome of the 2014 Third International Conference on SIDS - the SAMOA Pathway - was the establishment of the SIDS Partnership Framework, designed to monitor progress of existing, and stimulate the launch of new, genuine and durable partnerships for the sustainable development of SIDS.

Guided by a member States driven Steering Committee, the framework has since its launch ensured that SIDS partnerships have remained high on the UN’s agenda, providing a multi-stakeholder platform for reviewing progress made by SIDS partnerships, and for sharing of good practices and lessons learned among all stakeholders, on an annual basis.

In September 2019, member states will (A/RES/72/217) convene a one-day high-level meeting to review progress made in addressing the priorities of SIDS through the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway.

A robust member States driven preparatory process is currently underway, with three regional meetings of SIDS in their respective regions, as well as one interregional meeting for all SIDS.

With generous funding support provided by the government of Italy, and under the overall guidance of the Steering Committee on SIDS Partnerships, UN DESA is undertaking a capacity development project Strengthening the capacity of SIDS in developing, monitoring and reviewing durable Partnerships.

The need and call for the development of indices that adequately capture the special vulnerabilities of small island developing States (SIDS) has been around since the adoption of the Agenda 21. The call was repeated in the Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA), mentioned in the Mauritius Strategy and re-echoed in the S.A.M.O.A Pathway.

For the last 3 decades, a plethora of UN General Assembly resolutions also carried similar repeated calls, the latest of which was in December 2020, Paragraph 8(a) of Resolution A/RES/75/215, where the Assembly calls on the UN Secretary-General:

“To provide recommendations as part of his report on the present resolution to the General Assembly at its 76th session on the potential development and coordination of work within the UN system on a multidimensional vulnerability index for small island developing States, including on its potential finalization and use;”

This MVI page carries and reflect the discussions and work towards the possible development and use of  the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI).

A newsletter on Small Island Developing States, prepared by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs with inputs from members of the Inter-Agency Consultative Group (IACG) on SIDS.

• The Cowrie - Financing in SIDS (2019)
• The Cowrie - SIDS Times Magazine
• The Cowrie Special Edition 1 – AIMS Regional Preparatory Meeting Report
• The Cowrie Special Edition 2 – Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting Report
• The Cowrie Special Edition 3 – Caribbean Regional Preparatory Meeting Report
• SIDS Times - The Cowrie (June 2018)
• SIDS Times - The Cowrie (December 2017)
• SIDS Times - The Cowrie (September 2017)

ECLAC Caribbean’s monthly newsletter

• The Hummingbird

Inter-Agency Consultative Group (IACG) on SIDS

The IACG is an informal consultative mechanism at the working level in which the SIDS focal points of relevant UN agencies as well as international and regional intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) come together to exchange views and information. The SIDS-focused and hybrid membership composed of the UN and non-UN agencies make it an effective tool for maintaining the momentum created at the Third International Conference on SIDS in Samoa, 2014, and for keeping SIDS issues high on the international agenda. This group also explores ways and means to enhance coordinated and collaborative actions in support of SIDS in implementing the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway (Samoa Pathway) based on their respective areas of expertise.

Learn more about the IACG here.