Hon. Marcus Bethel, Minister of Health and the Environment
Hon. Ministers
Amb. Anwarul Chowdhury, Secretary-General of the Mauritius Conference
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen
Permit me firstly, to join with the previous speakers in expressing sincere thanks and appreciation to the Government and People of The Bahamas, for hosting this meeting. There is no need for me to stress how important the subject of our deliberations is. My comments will be brief and to the point.
1. The Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) is a set of policy and programmatic responses to the conclusion, in the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), that SIDS constitute a special case, needing special attention, if they were to achieve sustainable development. The review of the BPOA is therefore not an academic exercise, but an effort to determine whether the measures in the BPOA have been implemented, and, more fundamentally, whether SIDS are now in a better position to achieve sustainable development.
2. The evidence today, from the National and Regional Assessments and from independent studies, analyses and reviews, is that the economic, environmental and social conditions weakened in the 1990s. A few examples will suffice:
As regards trade,
(i) intensified competition from global trade liberalization, changed market access conditions and adverse movements in the commodity terms of trade of SIDS, have led to their having a significantly reduced share of international exports and rising trade deficits. For CARICOM SIDS, for example, the unit value of 7 of their 11 most important exports fell between 1995, the first year of the WTO, and 2000 – for 5 of these exports, the decline was by more than 25 per cent. The trade deficit increased from US$1.2 billion in 1994 – the year before the establishment of the WTO – to US$3.4 billion (or almost triple) in 2001;
(ii) another aspect of SIDS trade is the heavy and increasing dependence on imports for strategic products such as energy and food. The CARICOM food import bill increased by 47 per cent between 1994 and 2001. A particular area of concern has been the high cost of obtaining energy services from petroleum sources. This concern seems set to be heightened by the recent decision of Shell/Chevron to reduce estimates of its oil reserves by 20 per cent. This action comes in the wake of the published results of a study by a highly respected Swedish group of scientists that suggest that estimates of global oil reserves have been grossly overstated. Whether these assertions are proven correct or not, it is anticipated that Shell/Chevron will most likely be emulated by other oil companies. If this should happen, SIDS can expect a dramatic increase in the price of oil-based energy products and services.
Paradoxically, SIDS, because of their location, are endowed with renewable energy resources from which significant amounts of affordable energy products and services can be obtained. While many SIDS governments would no doubt like to exploit their renewable energy resources, the state of technology development and transfer and the nature of advice received from international financial institutions discourages this. Ironically, the dependence of SIDS on traditional energy resources only deepens their vulnerability and reduces their resilience;
(iii) another example of the worsened situation is the disproportionately high and increasing costs of transport and communication. The inherently high transport (air and sea) costs are being pushed even higher by requirements to meet certain security requirements after September 11, 2001. This is no where more evident than in regard to the requirements of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373.
The imposition of the new IMO Maritime Security requirements on 1 July 2004 could also see many seaports in SIDS countries losing both cargo and cruise shipping services, as ship operators seek to avoid penalties for visits to ports adjudged not to be meeting the security standards. The IMO and certain States are adamant that since the new requirements were agreed in December 2002, there can be no extension of the compliance dates. Airlines, for example, also face the financial burden of having air marshals on some of their flights. The financial cost of compliance with these measures could be high for SIDS while the cost of non-compliance would be a drastic fall off in trade and tourism. Indeed, it is estimated that new security requirements could add up to 10 per cent to the operating cost of seaports in Florida which were already fairly secure. Consider the addition for seaports in SIDS and then add the costs of epidemiological surveys at ports for diseases such as SARS;
(iv) the additional burdens on SIDS, caused by changed external conditions, are further exacerbated by the vulnerability to, and impacts of exogenous financial shocks which have increased since 1994. For example, as economic conditions and priorities in the major developed countries changed, ODA to SIDS fell by 50 per cent between 1994 and 2002. This declining ODA, coupled with high debt repayment and interest payments and low investment flows, led to the conclusion by the UN Secretary-General in October 2003, that “One stark fact should be on our minds throughout this timely dialogue: in 2002, for the sixth consecutive year, developing countries made a net transfer of financial resources to other countries. Moreover, last year’s was the largest such negative transfer ever: almost US $200 billion”;
(v) social vulnerability has also increased due to, for example, persistent poverty, increasing health threats in particular HIV/AIDS, severe shortages of trained and experienced professionals, such as teachers and nurses, due to their active recruitment by agencies from developed countries, limited opportunities for gainful employment, particularly among the Youth, widespread use and trafficking in illicit drugs and the return of hardened criminals from developed countries and rising crime and violence;
(vi) as regards the environment, scientists have confirmed, and our experience of weather patterns underscores, the reality of climate change and the threat of sea-level rise. Of great concern to Caribbean SIDS is the threat to the Caribbean Sea posed by a number of factors, including the transshipment of nuclear waste and other radioactive material.
3. It is these factors that led the CARICOM Secretariat, in its presentation to the Monterrey Conference in 2002, to contend that the critical development gaps – the human development gap, the technology gap, the knowledge and information gaps, the production gap and the trade and terms of trade gaps – were all widening between developed and developing countries. For the majority of SIDS, these gaps were not only widening but the states were becoming more vulnerable and, in cases, possibly unviable.
4. In the face of these factors and despite the significant efforts and notable achievements by many SIDS over the last decade, it is difficult to conclude that they are now in a better position to achieve sustainable development than in 1994. The opposite may well be true.
5. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, though SIDS themselves must intensify their sustainable development efforts, fully exploiting their economic, social and cultural attributes, the case for these States to be accorded special consideration to assist them to build resilience to external and internal shocks and to organise to reduce the impact of their inherent constraints to sustainable development remains valid. To that end, the outcome of the Mauritius Meeting, and therefore of this meeting in The Bahamas must, in our view, include:
(i) agreement on special classification for SIDS using whatever credible definitions might be necessary;
(ii) agreement on the provision of real resources to reverse the existing negative economic, social and environmental trends;
(iii) recommendations for policy and operational changes in the appropriate fora, to ensure that multilateral trade policy provide space and mechanisms for SIDS to grow strongly and sustainably. These would necessarily include the maintenance of preferences, the provision of resources to enhance competitiveness including the termination of premature graduation from concessionary financing;
(iv) more broadly, agreement on the principle of exemptions for SIDS from the obligations under certain international agreements, or resources to facilitate the meeting of those obligations and/or compensatory arrangements.
(v) the establishment of Special Funds/arrangements to help SIDS to build capacity. This must place particular emphasis on Youth and include the training and replacement of skilled persons recruited out of the Region as part of a broader Human Resource Development Strategy;
(vi) a clearly established and adequately resourced mechanism to monitor the implementation of the commitments undertaken;
(vii) commitment of SIDS political leadership and full engagement of their populations in this global campaign for their sustainable development and thus their very future.
Mr. Chairman, while the above does not attempt to be exhaustive, we would like to believe that they are indispensable. Thank you.
