91麻豆天美

Excellencies, 
Colleagues, 
Ladies and gentlemen,

I welcome you to our meeting of National Focal Points of the Pacific region SIDS.

I  thank you for coming together via this virtual platform at a time when the challenges to your countries are severe. But maybe that is precisely why we must meet because the time is NOW for action.

Yes, we face a health pandemic but a pandemic that shows so many interconnected features! 

So, you,  the national focal points, and your work are more  important than ever to enhance coherence of SIDS issues in UN processes be it at the national, regional or global levels.

You are a critical force in steering the focus and efforts of OHRLLS in particular but also to the UN system so that  targeted support and policy advice are provided.

I also express my gratitude to the colleagues from the UN and other international and regional organisations for your active participation and your spirit of partnership in this endeavour.

Given the COVID pandemic, we are not able to hold our regular in person meeting of the national focal points, which was originally scheduled to be held in Antigua & Barbuda at the end of the month.

We decided to organize a virtual meeting in the meantime, in anticipation of the face to face meeting still to take place in Antigua & Barbuda at a later date.

The time differences and certain technical constraints have made it unfortunately necessary that we convene separate regional meetings.

Regrettably, this does not allow for the cross-regional discussions and face-to-face networking that are so important to this mechanism.

In spite of these constraints and shortcomings, it is essential to convene these virtual meetings.

It is essential that you the  national focal points remain the driving force on sharing of information, lessons learned and best practices. This is perhaps more important than ever.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Last year, the high level Mid Term Review of the SAMOA Pathway revealed that while some tangible progress had been made over the past five years in implementation, major gaps remain and challenges must  be addressed with urgency.

We saw the glass as half full. The COVID-19 pandemic threatens hard won progress and to turn the glass into half empty.

The pandemic triggers a new array of challenges to implementation, while aggravating existing ones.

In the immediate, COVID-19 has laid bare the weaknesses of the health sector in SIDS.

It has negatively affected the education sector.

This is especially the case for the most vulnerable with unequal access to digital technology infrastructure.

The pandemic has put tremendous pressure on already limited social protection systems and has triggered large-scale unemployment, which disproportionately impacts on women and the poor and vulnerable.

Over the past few months, SIDS have experienced an unprecedented decline in economic activity.

Global supply chains are disrupted.

A major income earner, tourism, has almost come to a standstill.

The all important remittance flows have dwindled.

Add to this, commodity price shocks, major loss of foreign investment and challenges in mobilizing resources in capital markets for some SIDS,.

Never before as far as I can recall have we seen such limited fiscal space to both respond to COVID-19 and to build back better.

The storm is near perfect.

With the closure of borders, many of the more remote small island communities are simply cut off and have become even more vulnerable.

Travel and related restrictions add to insurmountable hurdles such as how to address the most recent category 5 cyclone Harold in the Pacific.

A cyclone which once more has greatly affected lives, livelihoods, and infrastructures in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and my own country Tonga.

It is clear that SIDS will need targeted and effective support - and they need it NOW.

The UN system has prioritized the most vulnerable countries, including SIDS, in its response to COVID-19 at the national, regional and global levels.

OHRLLS continues to advocate for SIDS on a range of issues, including on access to concessional financing, debt and food security.

Together with and through the focal point mechanism, we are working to build capacities to respond to the range of shocks facing SIDS.

We must do that because we must get back on track in the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway.

The SIDS National Focal Point Guide will be circulated in due course.

We will also continue to explore ways to implement the capacity building strategy that we have shared with you earlier in the year.

As a part of this effort, we will be working with Malta and the Small States Centre for Excellence toward the recovery of the tourism sector in SIDS. We will share more on this in the coming weeks.

We also work toward finalizing the toolkit that we considered during last year’s focal point meeting.

This toolkit is there to provide guidance to national governments and relevant stakeholders on effective and harmonized monitoring and reporting on the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway.

A key feature is to align with the monitoring and reporting frameworks of other international agreements, including the SDGs and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.

One of the biggest challenges of finalizing the toolkit is the lack of a clear reporting framework, with validated targets and indicators, for those areas of the SAMOA Pathway that do not overlap in categorization and focus with the SDGs or Sendai Framework.

Once more, let me say the driver has to be SIMPLIFICATION.

Last year, the United Nations General Assembly called upon the Secretary-General to identify those SAMOA Pathway priority areas not covered by the SDGs or the Sendai Framework.

The request asked to develop targets and indicators for those priority areas.

This work will build on the work done by OHRLLS on the toolkit and provide the validation process for these targets and indicators.

OHRLLS is working with DESA to complete this work next year September. 

This, I really hope, will allow us to better evaluate and track success in the implementation of the SAMOA Pathway. Given the multiplication of challenges from COVID to climate change related disasters this is more critical than ever.

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our meeting is our opportunity to take an honest look at  responses put in place and those that are still needed because we must get back on track to realize the SAMOA Pathway and the 2030 Agenda in SIDS.

With us are resource persons and country representatives from across the region. I thank you all for sharing your challenges, strategies and approaches in response to COVID-19 at the national, regional and global levels.

The situation the SIDS and their peoples face  demand that we have an open, frank and action-oriented discussion.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that we launched our new website last week under the UN online umbrella at . We hope that you will find the website to be an important resource for information on events, reports and activities carried out by the office, relevant official documentation and other reports covering the LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS and on how global trends, from COVID-19 to climate change, are playing out in the world’s most vulnerable countries. 

This website will also be fully integrated to the advocacy and social media work of the office, providing a forum for information exchange on ways to move forward. 

I look forward to listening to you.

Thank you.