President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Friday declared Maldives' enduring commitment to building sustainable and prosperous futures for all Small Island Developing States (SIDS), stating that the archipelago aims to achieve its goal by 2025.
He made the remark at the High-level Review of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway Multi-stakeholder Roundtable I: Progress, Gaps and Challenges, held at the 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Speaking at the meeting, President Solih stressed that SIDS cannot graduate from small island status or the unique circumstances that entail thus, from limited resources, geographic dispersion, and fragile ecosystems or vulnerability to external economic and environmental shocks. Hence, he stated that small island states will always be a special case for sustainable development, and noted that the mid-term review of the SAMOA Pathway marked the midpoint of a journey that began in 2014.
“Our countries are particularly susceptible to disasters, and we continue to be disproportionately affected by the adverse impacts of climate change, challenging our very existence", he said.
“It is time we actually made progress on our ‘accelerated modalities for action.’ For this to happen we need our development partners to work with us as equals, allowing us to steer the course for our own sustainable development. We believe that it is important to understand that returns on investments are not always immediate".
The president went on to assure that investing in essential public needs of SIDS will yield benefits such as greater opportunities, and substantial long-term returns that will arise from peace, stability, and prosperity. He also urged financial institutions to consider the reliability and ability of a country to pay, over the viability and profitability of a smaller project investment in isolation, while setting rates for loans.
President Solih further called on the international community to deliver on the commitments already made in the SAMOA Pathway, stating that these have subsequently been supplemented by the Sendai Framework, Addis Ababa Action Agenda, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement. He added that these are all instruments that will collectively help guide SIDS through the journey of sustainable development set out in the SAMOA Pathway.
SAMOA Pathway commenced in 2014, with an envisioned destination of sustainable and prosperous futures for all SIDS in the face of unprecedented challenges that may arise due to the inherent characteristics that form the collective SIDS identity.
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