10 June 2015: Representatives from African Middle-Income Countries (MICs) and small island developing States (SIDS) have agreed on the Praia Declaration, which recognizes the need to align the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with national development plans and visions, addresses a follow-up and review mechanism for monitoring the SDGs, calls for the financing for development (FfD) process to recognize the unique challenges faced by MICs and SIDS, and recommends unleashing the full potential of South-South cooperation to promote SIDS’ development.

The Declaration was the result of an international conference in Praia, Cabo Verde, on 9-10 June 2015, organized by the Government of Cape Verde, UN Development Programme and other UN agencies.

“Becoming a middle-income country isn’t the end of the journey,” stressed Ulrika Richardson, the UN Resident Coordinator in Cape Verde. She elaborated that progress “needs to be sustained with significant investments in economic diversification, environmental sustainability and in continued social progress.”

On aligning the proposed SDGs with national development plans, the Declaration recommends integrating the goals into national and sub-national development plans and policy frameworks, and underscores the need to match ambition with means through adequate resourcing. The Declaration calls for greater investment to address challenges related to youth and employment, inequalities, and gender equality and human development, particularly for African SIDS.

The Declaration expresses appreciation for the universal nature of the post-2015 development agenda and its proposed follow-up and review mechanism, and states governments’ commitment to promoting equality and developing institutional capacity to collect disaggregated data.

SIDS that graduate from the least developed country (LDC) status face challenges related to reduced access to international support measures such as preferential market access, special and differential treatment under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and concession financing, according to the Declaration. It recommends addressing the criteria and graduation consequences for African MICs that can become “caught in the paradox of the middle income trap” at the Third International Conference on FfD, including commitments to ensure that MICs and SIDS have the necessary means to implement the post-2015 development agenda.

The Declaration also addresses, inter alia: SIDS’ high level of indebtedness and the potential for debt swaps to relieve debt and invest in sustainable development, including biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and sustainable use of ocean resources; building resilience to natural disasters and other shocks; the economic vulnerability index (EVI) as a requirement for LDC graduation of SIDS; domestic resource mobilization; an enabling environment for the private sector; and structural transformation.

High-level representatives from Cape Verde, the Comoros, Mauritius, São Tome and Príncipe and the Seychelles attended the conference, ‘SDGs in MICs and SIDS: Sharing experiences of MDGs towards SDGs,’ [IISD RS Sources] [Praia Declaration] [UN Cabo Verde Press Release]