Top officials from 14 small island developing States in the Pacific met this week the unique development challenges they face. ESCAP, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, was one of the Pacific High Level Dialogue's sponsors. UN Radio's Donn Bobb caught up with the head of ESCAP, Noeleen Heyzer, who explained that progress in achieving sustainability for these states has been uneven:
The problem is that many of the states have in fact done quite a bit in terms of the development strategy although the progress in the achievement of the MDGs is still not very even. Some goals have been achieved, others not; other countries have not been able to do it as quickly as some of the smaller countries. But at the same time, what has been problematic are the external shocks that have made it extremely difficult for the countries to continue to achieve along the same pathway. And in fact, many of the development gains that they have invested in are beginning to be lost. And these shocks happen to be both the financial economic shocks but also natural disasters. In fact, in the last couple of months, the island states here have been hit by tsunamis, by typhoons, by hurricanes, earthquakes. And what is happening now is that whilst the vulnerabilities have increased, the coping capacities have decreased.
So what can be done to help them increase their coping capacities?
Even if economies recover, social recovery and the recovery of people take a lot longer. So this is a time for the international community to come in much stronger in terms of partnership and to fulfil that commitment and obligation to fund the small island states. The small island states have got to be on everybody's agenda.
Would you say that geography has in some way put the Pacific island states at a disadvantage?
Well yes in some ways because the ocean is large and has created a very high cost in transportation and therefore the islands isolated. They are also vulnerable - the ocean rises, because of the climate change, they are exposed to extreme weather conditions and natural disasters, and the cost of transportation, the cost of energy, it's extremely high but at the same time, the the ocean is an ocean of resources and therefore learning how to manage ocean resources and to turn debt into wealth is a great possibility.
PRES: ESCAP Chief Noeleen Heyzer interviewed by UN Radio's Donn Bobb.
Duration: 2'15"