Seminar on Small Island Developing States: Their Vulnerability, Their Program of Action for Sustainable Development, Their Opportunities for Post-Lomé

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This seminar is organised by ECSIEP, PCRC, and ECDPM with additional support from the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Commonwealth Foundation.

More information? Contact Kathleen Van Hove

Check the papers and reports from the meeting. Related full text reports and documents are available as a 'webliography' on Euforic - a cooperative initiative to promote information exchange on these issues.

Introduction

In addition to the general problems faced by developing countries, island developing countries suffer specific handicaps arising from the interplay of factors such as smallness, remoteness, geographical dispersion, vulnerability to natural disasters and a highly limited internal market.

In the last two decades these characteristics were the subject of a number of international conferences, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (Barbados, 1994) being the culminating point of this process. This Conference adopted the Barbados Programme of Action (BPA) that proposes actions to be taken at national, regional and international level in order to strengthen sustainable development of small island developing states (SIDS).

One third of the ACP states are SIDS. Both in the current Lomé-IV-bis Convention as in the discussion on the future ACP-EU cooperation, the vulnerability of island-states with regard to external and internal economic and environmental developments is now recognized.

Objectives of the Seminar

To bring together experiences on sustainable development of SIDS in different international fora, notably the UN-SIDS Programme of Action, the programmes of the Commonwealth addressing the vulnerability of SIDS and the Lomé Convention.
To define the opportunities to address the development needs of SIDS under the current Lomé-Convention and future ACP-EU cooperation
To strengthen coherence and cooperation between the different international actors on sustainable development of SIDS, notably the UN-institutions involved in the implementation of the BPA, the Commonwealth and the European Commission.