Small island states, because of their vulnerability to natural disasters like hurricanes, should have issues like disaster mitigation factored into funding considerations by the international community, a United Nations official is proposing.

January conference to assess proposal

These disasters, says Diane Marie Quarless, chief of the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) Unit in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, can have severe impact on national economies.

What is needed, said Quarless, is an environmental vulnerability index to ensure that the states most at risk is given preferential treatment.

The increase in frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as the hurricane that wreaked havoc on sections of the Caribbean, resulting in billions of dollars in losses over the past months, is directly linked to climate change, said the SIDS specialist.

“There is a link between the environment and the economy and what we want the small islands to say is, ‘look, because of our environmental vulnerability, we need to have certain economic provisions’,” she told the Observer.

“We want you to factor into these special considerations that you are making for small islands the fact that we have environmental vulnerability that impacts on our capacity to pursue sustained economic growth.”

The proposal, she said, is currently in its drafting stage, and will be one of the topics to be discussed at a conference in Mauritius, from January 10 to 15.

Faced with challenges ranging from hurricanes and climate change to trade losses and threats of the deadly HIV/AIDS, the expected 120 or so nations that will be present at the Mauritius meeting will use the opportunity to present their case to the international community, to seek partnerships and innovative ways to improve their situation.

The meeting, which is expected to attract more than 2,000 participants from the islands, donor partners and other countries, is being held primarily to review the implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, which was agreed on in 1994 at a Global Conference in Barbados.

The programme of action focuses on environmental problems such as climate change, natural disasters, waste, marine resources, energy, biodiversity, transport, tourism and science and technology.

“Ten years later we will be looking at what we have done in terms of implementation,” Quarless told the Observer.

“The World Trade Organisation and globalisation have brought a whole different set of challenges to the developing countries, our competitiveness has eroded because as small states we lack a critical mass that makes for the advantages of economies of scale,” she added.

The programme of action has been only partially implemented due to a reduction in foreign aid.

According to the UN, while foreign aid represented 2.6 per cent of small island’s gross national income in 1990, it gradually diminished to only one per cent in 2002.

“There has been very little delivery in terms of support the international community has committed,” she noted. “However, a lot of support that has been given to general development, peace and security.”

Email: martina@jamaicaobserver.com