State of SIDS Report 2026 Launch Event: Defending the Special Case (HLPF 2026 Side Event)

Yes, I do. Okay. Hi, good afternoon, everybody. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, welcome to this side event where we'll be launching the State of SIDS Report 2026, which we're very excited about. My name is Emily Wilkinson. I'm Director of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative, RESI, which is hosted by ODI Global, the think tank based in London. We have an hour and a quarter, I think, for this session. It's being live-streamed, so we have some audience online as well. We are going to be going into some depth on the State of Cis report and on a couple of chapters and highlighting what the main findings are, but I'll turn to my colleagues in a moment for that. But we'll kick off with some welcome remarks from Donald Cronin, who's Deputy Permanent Representative of Ireland to the UN. Over to you.

Thank you, Emily, and thank you, Resi, for convening this very important launch event. We are 2 years on, as people know, from SIDS IV in Antigua and Barbuda, and it's a welcome moment, I think, take stock of where we are at, what has been achieved, and understand how we can accelerate ABAS implementation. We were delighted to recently launch a partnership with RESI, and that builds on our longstanding support to ODI Global, and in recognition of RESI's excellent work since its establishment, building knowledge on SIDS and amplifying the SIDS special case, as it is known. For Ireland, we're midway through our second strategy of partnership with SIDS, which the government is very committed to, and that focuses on deepening our partnership, supporting climate and oceans, building SIDS capacity, and advocating for SIDS priorities, including currently as President of the European Union until the end of this year. So, our objectives align very much with RESI, and it's a pleasure to work more closely on this. And the key part of that, together with our UK colleagues— and great to work with them— is the launch of this inaugural State of SIDS report. So, this report, as you will see, is the first synthesis report of research on sustainable development in SIDS. It's the product of, I would say, significant consultation with SIDS policymakers, with development partners, with academics, and it will be a valuable contribution to make the wider SIDS ecosystem. And really, our congratulations to Rezi and all those who supported it. Today, we're very much looking forward to insights from those who are engaging with SIDS or SIDS themselves, as we look at the progress that is being made, what some of the opportunities are, and what some of the challenges are. And very much appreciate one of the main thrusts of the report, which talks about not looking at SIDS primarily or solely through the focus of vulnerability, but of value— value that they bring, value that they have, and opportunities that are available there, which is very important to concentrate on as well. For us as Ireland, We continue to support SIDS in real and practical ways on the climate area, for example, through the Asian Development Bank. We have a trust fund on climate change and disaster resilience, for example. We also have a number of initiatives in building capacity, be it statistical capacity or elsewhere, or through our SIDS fellowship program as well. And as I mentioned, advocacy is important as well. Just want to mention one last thing. Our Minister for Climate will be here next week. He will be hosting an event with Marshall Islands and Tuvalu on the role of governments and civil society and how together they can work, we can work to decarbonize island nations. As you may have heard, Ireland and Tuvalu are both co-hosting next year the Summit on the Movement Away from Fossil Fuels, the first of which was held this year, and that's very important for us. And also the 5th Forum of the SIDS Global Business Network, which takes place in Maldives in August. We're very happy to support that as well. including civil society and government participation in that. So, with those few words, I'll hand back to you, Emily, and look forward to the discussion here today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm not sure if the livestream is working. I just got a note about it. I'm not sure if anyone in the AV team can support with that. Okay. Let's move on to a presentation. I'm going to ask my colleagues, Eliora Malefa and Matt Bishop, to take us through some of the highlights of the Statuses Report, but really starting with a bit more on the process, because we've been working on the report with the assistance of some people in this room and many other partners for about a year. So, it's been, it's been an intense process and that a lot of papers and research have been reviewed for this report. And the report is supported by the Government of Ireland and the Government of the UK, so we're very grateful to both for making it possible to produce this flagship report. And with that, over to Eleora for your presentation. Thanks.

Thank you, Emily. Okay, Hello everyone. Malo alo, se fuolo lele. My name is Eliora Malifa. I am a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and I also work as a Program Manager for the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative, which is RESI. I'll just spend a few minutes briefly introducing the Status of the Seas Report as a publication from RESI. So the Status of the Seas Report, when RESI, when the RESI team envisioned the Status of the Seas Report, it was seen as an opportunity to create a single authoritative synthesis of research on sustainable development. Every year, hundreds of research papers are published by academics on SIDS across a range of disciplines, especially in social sciences. These publications and sources of data represent a big resource for policymakers, given that data on SIDS is limited and that original research is costly to procure, and especially in small territories. So of course, we envision that the State of SIDS report would be seen as a one-stop-shop publication that collates, reviews, synthesizes, and translates the latest academic and policy research on SIDS for SIDS and their partners. We envisioned this with a couple of key performance indicators, the first being that we would understand trends in policymaking for SIDS, but also to bridge the gap between science academia and policymaking circles. A way that the team thought we could effectively do this— and I say this while I'm just realizing how small the print is up there— but a way that the team thought we would effectively— sorry, a way the team thought we would effectively allow this bridging to happen was to align the themes and thus the body chapters of the State of SIDS report to the core themes of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS, or the ABAS. The hope was to engage policymakers in identifying common, enduring, and emerging challenges and pathways to collective action. So with the structure of the report, it's comprised of 7 chapters altogether of approximately 10,000 words. I mentioned that the report is set to align with the ABAS. You'll see from You can see from Chapters 2 to 5 that they follow Items A to D in Section 2 of the ABAS, that is, building resilient economies, safer and more equitable societies, secure futures through energy transition and environmental protection. Chapter 6 of the State of SIDS report outlines the means of implementation of policy for SIDS, and it includes empirical data gathered specifically for the chapter via a survey to high-ranking public servants in CIS countries. I just want to note also that that QR code allows you to head to the State of CIS Report webpage, which is called An Experience and is pretty cool. Hopefully I get to have the time to show you, but if not, please look at it on your phones. And then I would also like to note that the report was originally intended to to be a synthesis of academic and policy literature, which I mentioned. But you will find, however, that although each chapter may be read individually, a lot of work, i.e., peer review, has gone into ensuring that the State of SIDS report has a point to make and a through line. And that has eventuated to be the defending of the SIDS special case, which was a theme of discussion at the SIDS Future Forum this year. And then finally, just a few points on process. The process of producing this publication. The State of SIDS report is authored by a range of prominent academics who produce research on SIDS and who are from SIDS countries. We aimed for author teams with a variety of contributors from complementary regional and thematic experiences. The chapter teams had up to 5 people in them, usually 4 in a team led by 1 to 2 lead authors. They liaised directly with us and also with their teams on narrative and structure. Those teams have reviewed over 500 texts, both books, articles, and policy, to draw on the latest research combined with their own data analysis. I also just want to briefly mention the rigorous peer review process that we undertook. It included many late-night cross-time-zone meetings, many edits, both for structure and readability. So once the chapter teams were put together, we had a rough draft in first drafts that were received by Monash, who provided keyword searches and literature review as well. The first drafts were sent on to the RESI team for review, as well as RESI affiliates to review and provide consultative advice. Then the teams produced a second draft. These were reviewed by Monash, and at the same time, preliminary findings of the State of SIDS report were presented to colleagues at the Pacific Islands Forum in Honiara and at the Moana Blue Pacific Pacific Pavilion and CARICOM Pavilion at COP30 in Belém. Those were September and November 2025, respectively. And then in January 2026, the author teams produced fine drafts, which were then sent to the resi team for review. These were presented to the SIDS Future Forum at Wilton Park in 2026. And then finally, the resi team reviewed those chapters in light of feedback received by colleagues at the SIDS Future Forum and then worked directly with chapter teams to align the chapters to a narrative and throughline that I mentioned before it went to copyright, typesetting, and design. So that process may have altered a little bit from the beginning, but it was to the benefit of the report. Now, I think I might have gone over time, but I encourage you to continue looking at the website. And I also don't want to ruin the tech— well, I don't want to create tech issues, so I'm just going to hand over to—

Thank you.

Matt now to speak on the next section. Thank you.

Okay, so hi everybody. I, I just wanted to start by saying that this is probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever worked on in my career. I mean, we've spent 5 years or so building RESI and producing lots of publications and lots of outputs. Emily's been making great films. We've got a brilliant podcast called Small Islands, Big Picture. And there'll be an episode on this where we talk to some of the authors of the chapters, which will be coming out quite soon. But it was a huge undertaking, and it started off as an idea after the very first SIDS Future Forum in 2024, just before SIDS 4. A few of us were sat upstairs in the cafeteria here working out what we were going to do next. How do we build on the SIDS Future Forum, and how can we make a contribution to supporting ABAS implementation, and we had this idea of doing a report that dovetails with the SIDS Future Forum every 2 years, which would basically try and synthesize this massive evidence and analysis that people working within the— particularly within the UN SIDS policy space and orbiting around it— that they don't have the time to digest themselves, right? They don't have the time to read lots of academic papers, and we could do that precisely because because we have this huge network of people across disciplines, across regions, across issue areas, that we could kind of get together over a sustained period of time to produce this thing. I reckon I've read this report cover to cover 3 times in different formats. Some chapters I've read many— much more than that, and I've spent a lot of time editing them and working with the teams and drafting other bits of it, but it's been a huge undertaking, but we think it's a A really, really important and significant piece of work. Now, I'm just going to very, very briefly situate some of the kind of intellectual argument, and then I'm going to do a deep dive into one of the chapters, Chapter 4. At each of our launch events, we're going to be deep diving into a different chapter as we go. So the introduction begins— and as Ellie said, we try to argue this kind of clear line throughout the report— the introduction begins by kind of posing these 5 big picture questions. And kind of substantiating them and making a case for why we need to think so seriously about them. The first is this idea of the SIDS special case potentially being under threat. Some within the multilateral space aren't as convinced by the idea that SIDS are distinctly or uniquely vulnerable in a way that they once were. The second is thinking about how the global order is changing and what changing geopolitics means for SIDS, where they have to navigate this kind of less permissive global order while seeking to preserve and reform multilateralism. The third is thinking about the SIDS development options. What are the things that SIDS stakeholders actually want? And this was distilled directly from the conversations at the SIDS Future Forum, and the idea is that they want new approaches to doing things. They want less extractive economies. They want to be able to seize emerging opportunities in AI and other sectors. They want to generate greater productive capacity. They want to build greater cross-regional collaboration and learning. The fourth is thinking more explicitly about something that I mentioned this morning in the session in the other room, which is this idea that the way the SIDS agenda is often framed is that there's a kind of— there's an act of solidarity with vulnerable states by providing support to SIDS. And we want to argue in this report, and this comes right the way through it, is that actually Investing in SIDS is an investment in global public goods, international diversity, and the long-term sustainability of humanity as a whole. This isn't just a private benefit for SIDS. When SIDS are supported, everybody wins. And then the final one is thinking about how, on the basis of the analysis in the report, we can and should defend the SIDS special case, and I'll come back to that in a moment. So Chapter 4, which was lead-authored by Kaleem Shah, who's based at the University of Delaware, is essentially anchored on the same Abbas chapter, really. Each of the chapters follows one of the Abbas chapters, and the kind of key top-level message from this that Kaleem argues is that SIDS need to urgently accelerate the transition to climate-proofed and integrated energy, water, transport systems, but there are big trade-offs between financing, reliability, and delivery between more centralized and decentralized infrastructure. There's a set of deeper trade-offs as well between the scale and flexibility of different infrastructural systems, the capital intensity and adaptability within them, and the short-term reliability versus long-term resilience. Sometimes SIDS have to make very, very invidious choices between all of these different things. In the rest of the chapter, the argument is that these— the consequences of making these different choices where you have small populations, geographic dispersion, and constrained fiscal space are much more heightened than they are in bigger states, right? You make a decision to invest in a particular piece of energy infrastructure, the sunk costs are enormous, that can have long-term consequences if it's the wrong choice. You can't just jump out of it in a small society, particularly if you've made that investment in a distant island in an archipelagic state. And infrastructure systems often serve entire national populations and lock countries into enduring development pathways, again in contrast to a bigger state where you might have, in the US, hundreds of regional energy systems. In a small island developing state, you might just have one thing, and you've got to get that choice right. There are a whole set of infrastructural dilemmas as well that face SIDS then across these 3 areas, and in the chapter the team unpick them. Quite a bit. So when it comes to energy, SIDS are highly electrified. Many of them are moving to kind of 100% or towards 100% electrification, but they're also dependent on expensive fossil fuels in many cases, apart from the handful that are energy producers. In some SIDS, renewables are growing. Centralized grids are generating economies of scale, but they also concentrate risk, particularly in a kind of exogenous shock scenario. While decentralized community-based energy systems can also be more resilient, and a number of SIDS are exploring these kinds of things. Overall, though, grid innovation is reducing fossil fuel dependence, and this picture is changing quite rapidly. So again, you've got really significant experiments now— hydropower in Fiji, geothermal in Dominica, which could potentially supply much of the Eastern Caribbean with cheap energy eventually, floating solar panels in the Seychelles. Lots of innovation is taking taking place in SIDS in the energy space. When it comes to water, as we know, SIDS face extreme exposure to sea level rise and all of the consequences of that, and also declining freshwater resources in many cases, and they also face these really big tensions in terms of what they can do about it. So desalination plants, pipe distribution, big-ticket investments can offer reliable supply particularly to urban centers where you've got concentrated populations, but they can be capital and carbon intensive. At the same time, decentralized systems which are expanding all the time across many SIDS— rainwater harvesting, household storage tanks, community treatment plants— can be more adaptable, but they face maintenance challenges quite often. It's difficult to keep them well maintained after the initial investment. When it comes to transport, as we know, SIDS depend on external connectivity to a greater extent, really, than many other states, relatively speaking. But they face daunting infrastructure costs. The sunk costs of building transport infrastructure are enormous. St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, built an international airport a few years ago, Argyle, that cost over 100% of GDP. It's a staggering amount of money that you have to sink into these big infrastructure investments. So inter-island and other kinds of external connections entail huge sunk costs while retrofitting and climate-proofing high-risk coastal infrastructure is essential, urgent, difficult, and expensive. Nonetheless, more and more investment is shifting towards more reliable climate-resilient ports, aviation, maritime systems, but this is quite patchy across SIDS. And the key argument that Kaleem and his colleagues try and make in this chapter is really that all 3 of these different bits of the infrastructure system influence each other, and the question they pose really is how can we design systems systems that balance reliability and efficiency with flexibility and resilience under conditions of climatic uncertainty and fiscal constraint, while also dealing with the imperative of decarbonizing, which itself poses a whole set— imposes a whole set of quite significant sunk costs. A couple of diagrams that I've pulled out of the chapter here. The first one shows that in many cases, compared to the rest of the world, SIDS are still over-dependent on oil, gas, and coal, hydrocarbons, even though we are starting to see a greater amount of renewables come into the mix. But the barriers to this are still quite significant, and they aren't just financial, they're also historical, right? Some SIDS are still locked into kind of grid agreements that were negotiated in the very early post-colonial period with monopoly service providers that are unwilling to give up their entrenched kind of vested interests within those societies. The second one is install renewable energy capacity for all SIDS, and as you can see, solar energy in particular is growing quite rapidly, and that's something to be celebrated, but it's still not really occurring fast enough, or as fast as we might like it to. The rest of the chapter then looks at the knowledge gaps, and the kind of argument that Kaleem and his colleagues make here is that there are sort of 3 things we need. We need better evidence, And this is something we hear a lot, and we heard it a lot this morning: more data is needed to guide investment and identify what works. We need integrated planning, so we need these systems to be planned together in a holistic way. We need greater finance and capacity with easier access to affordable finance and technology and technical support to leverage the infrastructure opportunities that exist. And the kind of key message, which again was something I said this morning, is that the world does not need to invent solutions for SIDS. They know what they want to do in many cases. They just need help to scale the solutions that are already being developed. And the data that is required to fill that gap is absolutely central. And I've taken a little quote here from the chapter where they say that gaps matter not simply because data are incomplete, because uncertainty in small, highly exposed economies— it should say exposed there— magnifies risks. So then finally, just very briefly coming on to the conclusion, we make again, kind of dovetailing with the introduction to the report, a series of quite big claims really, in order really to start a debate amongst the stakeholder community. The first one is we make an argument as to why the special case must be defended, and we suggest that this should be on the basis not just of vulnerability— vulnerability really matters— but it's also on the basis of value. The fact that SIDS generate an outsized but unmeasured contribution to global public goods. The second is that SIDS need transformation, not simply resilience. They need to be supported to increase the capacities that are required to generate meaningful structural transformation of their economies and societies. The third point is what I said just now, that the value of SIDS lies in their contribution to humanity. They make an outsized contribution, and I'll come back to that in a moment, The fourth is that delivering the Abbas itself requires structural reform, not just incremental assistance, and there are a number of suggestions that we make here for things that we might start thinking about in terms of how to improve the multilateral environment in ways that benefit the implementation of the Abbas. And the final point really is that knowledge, partnerships, collective action are crucial. One thing we keep hearing repeatedly from our partners is is that more people working in this space want to have better, more institutionalized lesson sharing and knowledge sharing across regions. And if I can just end with a quote from the report, this is taken from the conclusion, and we kind of make this quite provocative argument towards the end where we question whether SIDS are actually subsidizing global sustainability rather than being thought of as countries that benefit more than their GNI per capita would suggest from the support that they get. We suggest that the opposite is actually true. We argue that SIDS generate substantial global public value well beyond that which accrues to them, but this is neither meaningfully captured in existing data nor effectively compensated by financing mechanisms. So rather than being viewed as net recipients from a generous multilateral system, SIDS are actually net contributors to a potentially miserly one. Plenty of evidence in the report supports this claim, from unpaid domestic care work that reproduces their populations, communities, and cultures, to international biodiversity protection and ocean stewardship that provides a core public good. This potentially represents, in our view, a massive systemic distortion with significant political implications. What is not measured is not financed, and somebody said exactly this this morning in the session. What is measured is not financed, and what is not financed is not sustained. The policy implication is that we therefore need a radical expansion and rethinking of what actually counts as value, placing natural, social and care-based contributions on the balance sheet and linking them to financing mechanisms. Without this, SIDS will be treated as low-productivity economies still, rather than high-value systems operating under structural constraints, which could, by implication, be alleviated. And that's where we think at least the conversation could go over the next couple of years to thinking a bit more expansively about how we evidence and make a case for the wider value of SIDS to humanity as a whole. And I'll stop there.

Thank you. Thanks very much, Matt. So there's really a lot to dive into in this report, and Matt's provided a really useful starting point there, and I really encourage everybody to have a look at the report, scroll through, download chapters, which are of particular interest. Maybe we can come back and look at the report online in a second. But I want to welcome panellists who we've asked to reflect on the key messages of the report and respond to a couple of questions in relation to that and what's being discussed and proposed and some of the sort of provocations in the report. So, we have a number of panelists who kindly offered to provide some remarks: Ambassador Tone from Tonga, we have Ambassador Helen Young from the United Kingdom, and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, Kamal Kishore. And I think we will have Ambassador Webson from Antigua and Barbuda joining us shortly. So, I think I'll start with a question for you, Kamal, if I may, because we've had a bit of a zoom in on some of the infrastructure energy security issues in that chapter and some of the progress that is also being made. So, what I wanted to ask you is, given the sort of capacity constraints that SIDS face in designing and delivering really integrated, resilient infrastructure. What approaches do you think have proven most effective in building lasting systems that can really advance and improve national and regional infrastructure? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Emily, for that question and also a great piece of work. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr.

President, for the great work you've led, and I had the pleasure of participating in my first event of the year, which was on this, so it's nice that before the middle of the year we have a great output which will frame the conversations, and I really liked what you said, that if we look carefully, it's our subsidizing sustainability of the world. You know, I always give the example of Kiribati, Kiribati. There is no point in Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati, where you can't see the sea, you know, everywhere. It's such a small piece of land, but it's the oceans that it is responsible for is larger than size of India. So it's managing that resource for everyone, not just for themselves. So now coming to your question, I think it's a very big challenge. On one hand, we have a lot of infrastructure deficit in many of the cities. On the other hand, there is the issue of capacity as to how do we invest in infrastructure there such that it leads to more sustainable outcomes. In my assessment, there are 3 things that need to happen. The first thing that really needs to happen is that while there is a hard investment there is investment in actually upstream work in building institutional capacity to have a robust conversation about what infrastructure for what purpose, for what time horizon, to deliver what kind of services. A lot of the times that is lacking. Where the development partners have invested in doing that soft work, I think we've had better outcomes. Many of the SIDS, for example, they are using building codes imported from other countries without really adapting them to their own risk context. I think that is something very essential that we do, that soft institutional strengthening work alongside hard investment. It's not one after the other, but that's the That's one thing. The second thing is that a bit more integrated approach to risk management. There are people working on climate risk, there are people working on disaster risk, including the disasters emanating from geophysical hazards such as tsunamis, volcanoes, and earthquakes. I think in particular, in no country we can afford fragmentation, but particularly in since we cannot, I think, because you have just the sheer number of people is limited. So an integrated, comprehensive approach to risk management is absolutely essential. And my third point would be that some of the discussion on resilient infrastructure needs to happen at the level of investment itself. When you're planning, when you're coming up with an investment pipeline, how do we ensure that we have that 2% or 3% or 5% extra in that pipeline for building resilience, whether that is financed from the domestic resources or from multilateral development banks, wherever it is? I think SIDS are in many ways very progressive, So it is not too much of a stretch to imagine where resilience and the notion of resilience is hardwired in upstream financial planning, investment planning in the country. So if we did these 3 things, we will move the needle towards resilience in infrastructure systems in a sustainable way.

Thank you very much. And maybe we can come back to the question of finance and financing resilient infrastructure in a moment. I want to address the next question to Ambassador Tonne. We are now 2 years on from the SIDS IV Conference and the launch of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS. In a way, this report sort of serves as a baseline. It's kind of what we know about conditions and challenges and progress in SIDS. sort of around the start of the 10-year— the current decade for SIDS. How do you think that SIDS have been working towards creating some of the structural mechanisms to deliver on the Abbas themes? Because there's a lot in the Abbas and it is very ambitious. How do you see progress?

Thank you very much, Emily, for moderating our session and, of course, asking me that question. And for those who attended the previous session with UNDESA, forgive me, I'll be making the same remark with regards to this particular question because I feel it's it's spot on in terms of addressing that question. The interest here, of course, Emily, is how do we look at implementing ABAS, accelerating it in view of the report? Of course, congratulations on the launching of the State of SIDS Report 2026. Doing a little bit of a stocktake, we know that it's now 2 years on from SIDS IV and the launch of ABUS in 2014. SIDS have been working hard towards creating structural mechanisms to deliver on ABUS, and let me mention some of the work that SIDS have done in this regard. Firstly, SIDS have advocated for vulnerability to be recognized alongside income. SIDS have called on the international financing systems to reflect vulnerability and resilience needs, not simply GDP per capita. SIDS have strongly advocated for MVI to become an operational tool for concessional finance, debt treatment, climate finance access, and graduation decisions. Secondly, SIDS have sought for investment in institutional strengthening. Greater investment is needed in public administration, data systems, digital government, national planning systems, and local implementation capacity. So for SIDS, strengthening institutions may offer the greatest return on investment. Third, SIDS have sought to build predictable and long-term partnerships. SIDS benefit most from multi-year financing, flexible funding windows, reduced reporting fragmentation, and support that can adapt rapidly when shocks occur. SIDS need financing that matches the long-term nature of institution building. Short project cycles rarely build sustainable capacity. Fourth, SIDS have sought to accelerate the renewable energy transition. Dependence on imported fossil fuels remains one of our greatest vulnerabilities. The current energy shock should be a wake-up call. Renewable energy transition is at the heart of building resilience in SIDS. Many SIDS are now looking to transition to more sustainable energy sectors, where improved energy efficiency and renewable energy play an increasing role. SIDStock is an initiative among member countries of the Alliance of Small Island States, or AOSIS, to help SIDS transform their energy sectors and address adaptation to climate change. SIDSTOC actively supports ABASS by spearheading the energy transition, expanding the blue economy, and driving climate action across SIDS. Their work focuses on economic diversification and facilitating access to renewable and ocean energy Technologies. I, if I may add, as Permanent Representative of Tonga, am representing the Pacific region as the current chair of the Executive Council of SIDSTOC. And Honorable Feleti Teao, as Prime Minister of Tuvalu, is representing the Pacific region as the president of the 9th session of the SIDSTOC Assembly. The 10th session of the SIDSTOC Assembly is coming very soon. It's been scheduled for the 24th of September, 2026. I'm glad that Matthew covered quite well the point about renewable energy, and of course, that is the way to go forward in terms of the perspective of SIDS. My last point in reply to your question, Emily, is that SIDS have sought to move from crisis response to resilience investment. The cost of prevention is significantly lower, than the cost of repeated recovery. Every dollar invested in resilience reduces future humanitarian and reconstruction costs. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think if Ambassador Webson would like to come in on this question as well, that would be great. Do you want me to sit? Of course, yes, absolutely. So, yeah, the question is, 2 years on from the SIDS IV conference and the launch of the Abbas, how have SIDS been working towards creating the structural mechanisms to deliver on the Abbas themes? So how are things going, I guess, is the question.

I have to get my paper.

And I think you had suggested that you would like to to respond to this question, so I'm happy to give you a minute. Obviously, we're only 2 years in, but, you know, time is passing by very quickly, and there's really a lot to do to make progress on this agenda. In his introduction, Matt was talking about some of the progress which has already highlighted in the State of SIDS report, and we would be certainly interested in your feedback when you have a chance to read the report. Are you happy to go?

Yeah, I would say, first of all, thank you very much.

Thank you.

And I would— and thank you for organizing this session. And again, I would like to compliment the authors of the report because I think this report itself is a good marker for us to begin to look at where we are, where we have come from in SIDS IV, and since SIDS IV, and more importantly, to keep the focus on ABASS over the next several years. I would expect this report to be updated in 2029 when they have their halfway review of SIDS IV. So 2 years on from from the SIDS 4 event and the launch, I believe, Abbas, Abbas, we have seen some progress. And one of the— I guess one of the main things is they— we now have, unlike the previous strategies, we now have a mechanism, a tool, and it's being developed and peddled by some of the UN agencies that we could use. So there is some structure that is being put that we could measure the progress of SIDS IV. So we have the— and it's built— the tool is built very much along the line of the SDGs, so it doesn't create extra pressure, extra pressure on the islands themselves. We're moving slowly, but we are seeing also some policy discussions being built using ABAS as an institutional base. And for us, that is important because we, we, we know that the SDGs finishes in 2030. We know that we wouldn't have covered it, but we know that ABAS is based somewhat around the SDGs as well. Absolutely. Well. And if we could see policy— and we are having a lot of discussions in the region about policy and linking ABAS so that we can popularize ABAS, so that people at all levels, all walks of life can do it. So the institutionals need for it, so we could begin to look at implementation when we get to the halfway point. Countries are stepping up. To align the national development plans with the— with ABAS. And we said, as we said, that's very important. While supporting practical delivery mechanisms is coming out of the— out of the ABAS, we are seeing some practical steps being taken, such as The EOSYS itself, we have focused on the Center of Excellence, the Data Hub, the IIF— that is the Island Investment Forum— and, and those, uh, practical steps. The Center of Excellence is operational and the Data Hub is operational. The IIF will be launched in a matter of a month, I think, and those are, um, steps that we're taking and we just to see how we could help in the implementation. So the focus is not on— is now on— is on establishing permanent institutions that can strengthen national capacity, mobilize investment, improve access to data, and provides sustainable technical assistance. This represents an important shift from fragmented project-based intervention, which is no longer important. So we moved from just project-based to system-based intervention. And the reason why it is important to take note that when we do project-based intervention, we build capacity of individuals within within their countries. And we lose these individuals as they become more skilled to organizations and international institutions that can pay a lot more than our national governments can pay. So we, by building systems, we are creating capacity building. So for us, system development is as important as infrastructure development, and we are moving in that direction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. My next question really picks up from there, because I think what is of real interest to advancing the ABUS across all of the different thematic areas, including resilient infrastructure and renewable energy systems, is, of course, financing models and partnership arrangements. And it's such a strong chapter, actually, within the State of SIDS report, really looking at what the literature says around the kinds of support that SIDS have received in the past, how that's delivered, the outcomes of that. And there really is quite an extensive literature on that issue, on those sets of issues. I want to ask some of the partners, and maybe start with Ambassador Young, what kind of financing models and partnership arrangements that really bring together a diverse range of partners and stakeholders have been most effective, do you think, in SIDS? And how could these be further improved and in such a way that they can really scale up support, scaled-up investment in resilience in SIDS.

Great, thank you so much. Hi everyone, I'm Helen King. I am the UK Ambassador to the Economic and Social Council, and I'm delighted to be here with you all. And thank you so much for all the work that has gone into this excellent report, and thank you for the presentation. So, what works I will use my own personal experience, what I've seen in-country, where I think the most successful models are ones that bring together the public finance, the multilateral partners, by which I mean the UN, the MDBs, the development finance institutions, also with CSOs and academia, in a platform that is not dissimilar, I suppose, to the way that we're set up here. Maybe the table's a bit smaller, actually. But the example of the country that I, that I'm thinking of, we had an excellent conversation whereby a representative, close advisor of the president of the, of the country, came with a brown paper envelope. And the brown paper envelope is because it was commercially sensitive information about the pipeline of possible investments. And I think you have to get to that sort of level of detail, both building that pipeline, but also having active conversations about how you will, together with partners and behind country-led strategies and national plans, how we can mobilize that investment and finance. As we know, limited sources of ODA are a very small percentage of the overall international finance available, so we should absolutely be using limited ODA by using this concessional finance to unlock the bigger investments. That's really the shift in the UK approach, which is shifting from donor to investor. I think we have had Sevilla and the International Conference on Financing for Development, and a big part of that was a global coalition that the UK announced to scale up prearranged finance for disasters, which is 2% of crisis finance currently towards the Global target of 20% by 2035. And in taking that forward, clearly we want that to make sure that the money is getting to individuals and communities more quickly. In terms of the how, I think a couple of thoughts. One is the tone of the partnership. So the UK is very focused on growth and investment partnerships. That are about accessing this broader picture of finance, mutual partnerships, trusting partnerships, collaborative partnerships, and helping with and not adding to the pressures on SIDS. And I think it's a very important point that Ambassador Webson made just a moment ago on that. Secondly, I think the blended finance platforms, groups, in this sort of configuration with all the different multilateral payers and different actors and the private sector can really help with that project viability discussion and scaling in the finance. And that's particularly important in SIDS, as it's been said, because the markets are small, but also there's a perceived risk that may or may not be an actual risk. So I think the point that Matthew made about improving the data on climate and investment risks, and actually having evidence rather than the perception of risk is really important. So the UK has an example, it's called TIDES, it's Transforming Island Development Through Electrification and Sustainability, and that is a blended finance fund that brings together public finance and private finance. Secondly, help on project preparation and and pipeline building, as I say, having a really clear set of bankable projects that investors can get behind, effective partnerships with the development banks, and early-stage feasibility studies and technical support. So an example of this is the UK's work on the Task Force on Access to Climate Finance, SIDA. Thirdly, risk-sharing partnerships is a very important part of our approach, and particularly addressing the high cost of capital faced by SIDS. So instruments like guarantees, insurance products, prearranged finance— again, sort of making investment more attractive whilst also strengthening the resilience of the system to shocks. And then I think the final thing to say is that ultimately the approach that works, in my view, is to use the concessional finance to be catalytic, and that's the key. Getting behind the country program, getting behind the country portfolio of projects. Sometimes grouping small projects into a sort of portfolio of investments is also helpful, because it gives investors a sort of menu of things to choose from. So I'll leave it there, but lots of good practice out there.

Thank you very much, Ambassador King. Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate your point about perceived risk may not be actual risk, and I think that has an influence on the cost of capital, and we're certainly interested in doing more research to look at the benefits of resilient investments in SIDS, because we think that they might be outsized as well. So, you know, the cost of investment is higher, but the returns may also be significantly higher, and those need to be factored into all kinds of assessments of risk, including by credit rating agencies. So that's a really important area. that I think comes out of the framing of the report as well, that the SIDS offer huge value in many respects. Thank you very much. I think it would be good to hear from some of the other panelists on that point as well, about what kinds of financing models and partnerships are working particularly well for SIDS, and how can we scale and promote them. Would anyone like to come in on on that question.

Ambassador?

Yeah, 5. Maybe Kamal, and then we'll come back to question 4.

Thank you, Emily, for that. On what works and what kind of innovation, what kind of practice we should pursue, Before that, I just want to say a few words in support of prearranged financing. I think the practice of prearranged financing in the current form is now 10 years old and we see that it is delivering results. 10 years ago, if you had said that we will have a system of putting money before something happens, people would say, come on, You know, you must be kidding. But now there is enough evidence that it works. And in prearranged financing in many different ways, we saw what happened after Cyclone Melissa in Jamaica. Jamaican government had pursued great fiscal discipline in the run-up to Melissa, and there was a fear that Melissa would lead to downgrading of their credit rating, but thanks to financial instruments that were in place, they had quick access to a significant amount of resources, not nearly enough to support reconstruction and recovery, but enough to launch a credible, comprehensive, immediate response, and as a result, they maintained their credit rating. So I really think that we need to foster and continue to nurture this practice of prearranged finance. Also, it is important that if it is working, we must not make a dogma out of it. It should really be responding to real needs and continue to evolve as it has over the last 10 years. Now, directly answering your question, one issue is that Attracting— so when I compare attracting investment into climate change mitigation, the metrics are very clear. You know what you are financing, what is the amount of clean energy you are going to generate through this investment. That is not so clear-cut in the context of resilience investments because we don't have commonly accepted resilience metrics. We do not have taxonomies. So I think some work on that so that we can be a little bit more objective about it, be more transparent about it, so that investors know what is it that they are actually investing in. I think that is really important. I think a fair amount of technical work needs to happen there. But it's not just technical work, it really needs to be supported and bought into by national governments themselves, that they— that's indeed the kind— that's indeed what they mean when they are talking about resilient investment. So that's the first point. The second point is that the history of investing in resilience in SIDS is full of scattered, small, suboptimal projects that deliver good results in location, but they do not add up to wider resilience of the SIDS themselves. So we've been pursuing this notion of using integrated national financing frameworks, so really support at the upstream level. Let's everyone sing from the same song sheet, which is written by the national government, as opposed to, you know, striking your own trumpet or violin or whatever. So, so I think that— so we should explore that a bit more. And my third and final point is that whether you're investing in climate action or disaster risk reduction or humanitarian, or supporting SDGs, all of this really needs to come together. So I think that's a corollary of my previous point of INFF. So I think how do we sort of have an integrated view of this? And in all of this, of course, investment must not be determined just by the size of the economy or looking at the income levels, but also using multidimensional vulnerability really to avoid any blind spot you might have. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have one final question, which is about climate finance, which is a bit of a bugbear. for SIDS in terms of access, and there continue to be real challenges in accessing climate finance, which should be concentrated in reaching the most SIDS as one of the most vulnerable group of countries. Ambassador Tonne, what practical changes do you think could be made to make climate finance more accessible, but also strengthen country ownership and nationally led investment pipelines, as Kamal was talking about?

Thank you very much. I think the question of finance is a very important one, but in reply to your question, let me answer it with a focus on the Pacific region and not necessarily in the wider SIDS family, but of because it does link up to the wider, bigger set. Making climate finance more accessible in the Pacific requires cutting through bureaucratic red tape, shifting from complex project-by-project models— I think that was mentioned by my colleague earlier on— models to programmatic funding and boosting local capacity to manage and implement resilience projects directly. Some of the practical Thank you, Mr. President. The key changes include: Operationalizing the Pacific Resilience Facility, or the PRF. Tonga was selected to host the PRF, a groundbreaking initiative targeted to enhance climate and disaster preparedness across the Pacific Island countries. The PRF will be the first Pacific-led, member-owned financing facility designed to generate sustainable investment income for community resilience projects. The PRF helps communities access climate and disaster resilience funds directly without navigating the heavy administrative burdens of global vertical funds. Second, streamlining bureaucracy— simplifying the unwieldy technical documents, multiple reporting systems, and duplicated readiness processes currently required by international bodies like the GCF, while maintaining compliance and oversight. For SIDS, capacity constraints remain a major bottleneck. Small administrations carry disproportionately heavy reporting and implementation burdens. Many in SIDS have weak statistical systems, limited institutional capacity, fragmented reporting requirements, and high staff turnover. In many cases, The same small teams are responsible simultaneously for implementation, coordination, reporting, and crisis response. Third, embedding local advisors. Scaling up initiatives like Climate Finance Access Network, or CFAN, which embeds national advisors with local government ministries to build capacity, streamline project rollout and unlock millions in investment pipelines. Through hands-on capacity building, these advisors train hundreds of local civil servants in climate finance fundamentals, ensuring that the financial expertise remains in-country long after their 1- to 2-year deployment ends. By acting as a liaison between developing countries and major institutions like the GCF, Advisors bridge the gap by turning early-stage climate concepts into bankable investments. Fourth, enhancing financial management systems. By integrating climate priorities directly into the national budget processes, such as Fiji's implementation of a budget classification structure, it makes it easier to track and verify climate spending. Improving the financial management systems in the Pacific Island countries requires careful pacing and sequencing, often emphasizing foundational processes rather than adopting overly complex systems. Fifth, standardizing regional taxonomy. I heard my colleague mentioning that earlier on. This will support the implementation of a unified Pacific climate change taxonomy to improve transparency and mobilize climate finance. Pacific Island countries face exceptionally high adaptation needs relative to their GDP. Despite the availability of global funds like the GCF, the region faces disproportionate difficulties in accessing and dispersing capital. A regional taxonomy addresses these hurdles by providing standardized definitions, enhanced transparency, and streamlined reporting. Then lastly, diversifying funding sources. This can be done by leveraging non-traditional capital, including philanthropic foundations, green blue bonds, and parametric microinsurance to rapidly disburse relief after extreme weather events. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ambassador Webster, would you like to come in on that question?

Could you repeat the question again?

Yeah, just any remarks you'd like to make about innovative finance or partnership solutions, including improving access to climate finance.

We have said several times that The islands need to have— we need to develop models that will allow— I want to pick up on a couple of things that my colleague said, though, because I think that the discussion on capacity building regarding financing and the whole is very important. I think we have to look at how we support systems, the government systems in the islands, in order for us to strengthen the whole concept around building capacity. For us, the most effective models must combine public finance, private investment through blending finance directly with local, but managed and developed by the local. That's what local capacity To my mind, that's really important. Innovation financial mechanisms must be guided by the local capacity and the local conditions, again moving away from just projects into systems. Otherwise, what we find is we develop a lot of these things and we lose the thing, and we lose the capacity shortly after projects are done. A critical piece for me in the whole financing is also recognizing that our islands are small and therefore we don't attract the kind of finance that we really need all the time because of— so I think we have to cross land lines and do a lot of regional partnerships so that pull islands together. And I mean even across geographical lines, not just the Caribbean, but if we can build projects that can benefit some islands in the Caribbean maybe and some islands in the Pacific coming together. And this is a concept that is new and different because we haven't done that, but need to look at that. So for me, looking ahead, the platforms— again, the Island Investment Forum that we are thinking of is a good— is a good concept that we are looking at as a model to attracting innovative financing into the islands and into the framework that we are looking towards for sustainable prosperity. And we're placing a lot of emphasis on the strategy to make the Island Investment Forum a real opportunity for SIDS across the globe to begin to attract financing in innovative ways, even if it means across geographies, which is new but could be quite creative.

Great, thank you, thank you very much. And we've heard about a lot of really interesting things that are already happening under the Antigua and Barbuda agenda for SIDS, and lots of examples of partnerships and financing arrangements that are working, but maybe not quite at the scale that we need them to be yet. We have a few minutes left if there are others who would like to come in. to make any reflections on the State of the Seas report or anything that you've heard before we have some closing remarks from Ambassador Seed from Palau and the AOSIS chair. So please just signal if you would like to speak. Let's go ahead.

Thank you so much, Emily. Duarte Valente from the Permanent Mission of Portugal, for those who don't know me. First of all, a word of congratulations to ODIHR, Resi, but also to Ireland and the UK for this report. I think it's very thorough. It certainly will be very useful for those at the United Nations still working on, on CEDAW issues, Second Committee and ECOSOC. It will inform our discussions and help us push forward the work. I wanted very briefly to start also by acknowledging the contribution of our own development agency, a colleague, Miguel Galante, who contributed to Chapter 5. So grateful for that and for seeing that put into good work. I won't belabor too much on the conclusions that were shared by Matthew. I think they're very valid and certainly useful in helping us continuing to advocate for the special case of SIDS. Many of the areas that are mentioned in in the report areas on which we work with SIDS, from the MPI to renewable energies to ocean. The esteemed Permanent Representative of Tonga mentioned the PRF. Portugal contributed €1 million to that, and we're happy to see that now come to fruition and hopefully also to contribute to specific projects, partly through UNDP. I just wanted to also give a last note in our current capacity and seeing here our dear colleagues from Belize as co-chairs of the Steering Committee for SIDS Partnerships, where we try to push forward this kind of work. Our mandate is running until the end of the year. It will culminate in the Global Multistakeholder Dialogue for SIDS Partnerships. So certainly that's another area where we can showcase this good work and explore potential partnerships also in that context. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

I think—

thank you. I'm Corinne Tromsdorf with the French Solid Waste Partnership. The partnership would like to share some ongoing reflections on France's island territories as pioneering testing grounds on the— for the circular economy, not as a separate discipline in its own silo, but as an underlying development philosophy. We've heard how island territories are metabolically vulnerable. They are almost entirely dependent on imports, Local waste disposal options are lacking often, and they face additional logistical costs for imports and exports. However, our French islands' constitutional and fiscal frameworks provide them with precisely the tools that mainland France lacks. As such, they can become pioneers of a circular economy that mainland territories would learn from. Tires provide a concrete example. Our islands import short-lived tires that cannot be retreaded or regrooved, generating rubber wastes that cannot be recycled locally and leading to illegal dumping, breeding grounds for dengue and chikungunya. Banning these tires at port inspections, combined with a rental model that integrates the retreading and regrooving, shifts the market towards products that can be managed at the end of their life and creates skilled local jobs. The actions that are being explored right now are as follows: use the material footprint as a guiding principle, for integrated territorial planning and deploy a circular territorial digital twin to use data to manage all aspects of circular economy, from intensifying use— the use of products to recycling, including extending the lifespan of objects. Another action is implement a bonus-malus system upon entry to the territory based on 3 sustainability classes: repairable, lifespan duration, and disposable. And make access to the island markets conditional on lifespan and repairability criteria for any goods whose end of life cannot be managed locally. Introduce an island clause into the specifications of the extended producer responsibilities schemes, which in France we have 28 of. So if others are thinking along similar lines, it would be great to exchange notes and experiences.

Thank you very much. I'm not sure if we have a hard stop at We're almost out of time, so if you can be very brief, I would be grateful, and then we have some final remarks. Thank you.

Thank you very much. My name is Sarah Scott Webb. I represent the World Evangelical Alliance. I'm also from New Zealand, where I lead the Oceania Freedom Network. We are a regional anti-human trafficking network across Aotearoa, New Zealand, and the Pacific. My question is concerning the resilience priorities outlined in the report. I note that Chapter 3 identifies sexual and gender-based violence as a major issue across SIDS. Was consideration also given to explicitly including human trafficking? Because while these issues are related, they are not the same, and they each require distinct prevention and protection responses.

Thank you.

The report rightly highlights the unique vulnerabilities that face SIDS. Yet these same characteristics also create opportunities for traffickers and transnational organized crime networks to exploit people and communities. And when sustainable development goals are not achieved, vulnerability to exploitation and human trafficking increases. Trafficking is both a consequence a vulnerability and a barrier to achieving the SDGs. My question was, how will the recommendations of this report ensure that preventing human trafficking and strengthening resilience to transnational organized crime are integrated into SIDS resilience building rather than be treated separately? Thank you, and thank you for all your work.

Thanks very much. We probably don't have time to go into kind of a thorough response to your question, but if you'd like to have a conversation after the session, we'd be very happy to discuss that with you. Of course, the report is not as comprehensive as we would love it to be, but it's already 250 pages too long, and so perhaps for a further iteration, that's something that we could look at. Thank you. Okay, and for For some closing remarks, I'd like to invite Ambassador Syed Pia of Palau and AOSIS Chair, over to you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam the Moderator. Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, as we bring this discussion to a close, let me thank all our panelists, our partners at RESI, and our co-organizers, the governments of Tonga, Ireland, the UK, the Maldives, Antigua and Barbuda, and the UNDRR.

Thank you.

For bringing us together today. Today's discussion has reinforced that the special case of Small Island Developing States is reflected in our geography, our real exposure to external shocks, our reliance on healthy oceans, and the disproportionate impacts of climate change, debt burdens, and global economic volatility. These structural vulnerabilities persist regardless of income levels, and they continue to shape the development pathways of every SIDS. The State of SIDS report comes at an important moment as we move to implementing the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS. This report provides more than a snapshot of where we stand. It can complement the monitoring and evaluation framework in measuring progress, identify gaps, and strengthen accountability for delivering results. Resilient Prosperity. But reports alone don't enact change. What will make the difference is whether the international community is prepared to act on the evidence presented. For AOSIS, that means ensuring that the special case of SIDS is reflected not only in declarations, but in decisions and in actions. It means moving beyond outdated measures of development that fail to capture vulnerability, It means expanding access to concessional finance, operationalizing the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, strengthening national capacities, investing in resilient infrastructure, and delivering on the commitments contained in the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS. The report also reminds us that resilience is not built by SIDS alone. It's built through genuine partnerships that are founded on trust, solidarity, and country ownership. Our development partners, international financial institutions, and the wider UN system all have a critical role to play in ensuring that the aspirations of the ABAS are translated into meaningful action. The question is not whether the world can afford to invest in SIDS. The question is whether the world can afford not to. Small Island Development States have long served as the canaries in the coal mine, sitting on the front lines of the pressing challenges of today on climate, on ocean, on biodiversity, and on sustainable development itself. And when SIDS thrive, they demonstrate what resilience, innovation, and international cooperation can achieve. And when SIDS are left behind, it signals deeper failures in the international system. The launch of this report must become a call to action, a benchmark for accountability, and a reminder that defending the special case of SIDS ultimately means defending the promise of sustainable development for all. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Just to let everyone know that we are planning to produce a Status of SIDS report every 2 years, so I hope that when we come back and present the next report in 2 years' time, we will have seen changes, positive changes, in the international environment and global governance system that so very much shapes SIDS opportunities, and that we will see the special case having been strengthened and supported. So I hope that next time we meet and we are here together speaking about the next State of SIDS report, that there will have been significant advances. Thank you very much for all attending this meeting and all our participants.

Thank you so much.