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Small Island Developing States Solutions Platform Concept Note SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES SOLUTIONS PLATFORM CONCEPT NOTE O A F © SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES SOLUTIONS PLATFORM CONCEPT NOTE Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Apia, 2021 Required citation: FAO. 2021. Small Island Developing States solutions platform: Concept note. Apia. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) concerning the legal or development status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Dashed lines on maps represent approximate border lines for which there may not yet be full agreement. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by FAO in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. The views expressed in this information product are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of FAO. © FAO, 2021 Some rights reserved. This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo/legalcode). Under the terms of this licence, this work may be copied, redistributed and adapted for non-commercial purposes, provided that the work is appropriately cited. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that FAO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the FAO logo is not permitted. If the work is adapted, then it must be licensed under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. If a translation of this work is created, it must include the following disclaimer along with the required citation: “This translation was not created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is not responsible for the content or accuracy of this translation. The original [Language] edition shall be the authoritative edition.” Disputes arising under the licence that cannot be settled amicably will be resolved by mediation and arbitration as described in Article 8 of the licence except as otherwise provided herein. The applicable mediation rules will be the mediation rules of the World Intellectual Property Organization http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/mediation/rules and any arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Third-party materials. Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO website (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence-request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected]. Contents 1.Introduction....................................................... 1 1.1. Context........................................................... 1 1.2. Existing knowledge exchange platforms serving SIDS........................................... 4 2. The SIDS Solution Platform................................ 5 2.1. Objective......................................................... 5 2.2. Rationale......................................................... 5 2.3. Modality........................................................... 5 2.4. Ownership........................................................ 6 2.5. Opportunities and risks..................................... 6 2.6. Sustainability.................................................... 6 3. The First SIDS Solutions Forum: 2021................... 7 3.1 Overview........................................................... 7 3.2. Theme............................................................... 7 3.3. Objective of the 2021 forum................................. 7 3.4. Rationale for choosing digitalization and innovation......................................................... 8 3.5. Challenges of digitalization and innovation.......... 8 3.6. Planning the 2021 forum.................................... 9 3.7. Audience of the 2021 forum............................... 9 3.8. Post forum activities......................................... 10 4. Timeline for Key Milestones................................. 12 References.............................................................. 13 1.Introduction 1.1 Context During the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, The 39 SIDS are spread across three global Brazil, the United Nations (UN) declared that regions including Africa, Indian Ocean, development partners should consider Small Mediterranean And South China Sea (AIMS); Island Developing States (SIDS) as a particular the Caribbean; and Pacific regions (FAO, 2021). case because of their unique development The AIMS region is home to eight SIDS context (UN, 1992). including Cabo Verde, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Mauritius, Sao Tome and Principe, Nine years later in 2001, the UN created its Seychelles and Singapore; while the Caribbean Office of the High Representative for the Least region is home to the majority of SIDS totaling Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing 16. These include Antigua and Barbuda, Countries and Small Island Developing States Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, (UN-OHRLLS) to mobilize international support Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, and advocate in favor of these countries. UN- Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, OHRLLS classifies 38 countries as SIDS based Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, on remoteness from world markets, high and Trinidad and Tobago. The Pacific region is exposure and vulnerability to climate change, home to the second largest number of SIDS, and fragile natural environments (2021). which include Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States Many UN agencies accede to this classification; of), Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, however, based on membership nuances, for Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, example, FAO (2021) and UNESCO (2021) Tuvalu and Vanuatu. include Cook Islands – an associate member of UN-OHRLLS – thereby increasing their coverage to 39 SIDS. n a h g a l l a C . T / O A F © P A G E 1 SIDS are characterized by small populations The development potential in SIDS therefore lies and numerous atolls that are thinly spread mainly in optimizing tourism, fisheries, across vast bodies of water. For example, in the agriculture and entrepreneurship. With the Pacific, Tuvalu has a population of about 11 advent of the Internet, many developing 000, while, Fiji, the second most populous countries, specifically in Asia, have drawn on country after Papua New Guinea has a the power of innovation and digitalization to population of 889 953 (World Bank, 2019) optimize tourism, fisheries, agriculture, etc… to inhabiting 110 of its 330 islands (Mapsland, advance social and economic development. 2021). In the AIMS region, only 194 of Maldives' 1,192 islands are inhabited; with 71 percent of Current levels of agricultural production and them having populations of 1 000 or fewer and a value chain development are low in many SIDS, land area of each being less than 50 hectares particularly Pacific SIDS, but these sectors (FAO, 2019). provide a very good basis for development by improving the enabling environment. Female In the Caribbean region, Saint Vincent and the coco and vanilla farmers in Samoa are Grenadines is an archipelago of over 30 islands, producing chocolates; Fijian farmers are making islets and cays with a population of 109 000 progress in value addition and agribusiness, living mostly on the mainland (FAO, 2015). while technology savvy locals in other Pacific SIDS are trying to replicate digital agricultural Home to some of the world’s extremely rich practices from Asia and Africa. The AIMS region marine and terrestrial biodiversity hotspots, SIDS have uniquely diverse opportunities, for SIDS thrive mainly on tourism, and marine example based natural resources and agriculture. In 2019, tourism contributed 34 and 45 percent of Singapore has so much to offer in terms of Jamaica (Lopez, 2020) and Palau’s (World Data. technology, tourism management and economic 2021) gross domestic product (GDP) development, while Seychelles is a hotbed for respectively. fish processing (World Bank, 2017), which could benefit other AIMS SIDS and beyond in terms of Conversely, in Seychelles, fisheries is the knowledge sharing. second most important sector after tourism, contributing 20 percent of GDP (World Bank, These opportunities are however, not without 2017). Agriculture is the third largest contributor challenges, for example, the demographic and to Fiji’s GDP bringing in about 10.4 percent geographic context challenges transportation, (Pacific Community, 2021). Some SIDS are also communications, trade, and learning between very rich with natural flora, for example, about farmers
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