22 March 2010: The Caribbean Regional meeting for the Five Year Review of the Mauritius Strategy for the further implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) (MSI+5) convened in St. George’s, Grenada, on 16 and 18 March 2010.
The event was hosted by the Government of Grenada, and was jointly organized by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) as part of the regional preparatory process for the high-level review to be undertaken by the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, in September 2010.
Participants noted that the continuing global economic and financial crisis has had dire consequences for the regions’ economies, and that the regions’ challenges are compounded by the global food and energy crises, the negative impacts of climate change, and the uneven and uncertain pace of their full insertion into global trade and development processes and persistent structural vulnerabilities. Participants expressed the Caribbean region’s concern about the inability to arrive at a far-reaching consensus agreement at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009. They supported efforts through the two-track approach to UNFCCC negotiations to reach a favorable outcome for SIDS at the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the UNFCCC in Mexico in December 2010, with legally binding commitments for developed countries.
As a way forward to address identified challenges, participants supported: identifying and assessing adaptation needs, building on the work already begun in adaptation to climate change and mainstreaming climate change adaptation concerns into national sustainable development strategies; addressing the issue of access to low carbon technologies and enhanced technology transfer; promoting energy efficiency and enhancing renewable energy resources and related services; expanding current initiatives to transform existing economies into more environmentally-friendly ones, promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, and building capacity in valuation and costing of ecosystem resources and ecosystem services; strengthening early warning systems and expanding a risk management framework that would be complemented by insurance and re-insurance schemes; promoting greater regional cooperation in research and development for SIDS-appropriate applications for improved knowledge management through mechanisms such as SIDSNET and the University Consortium for Small Island States (UCSIS); fully operationalizing the Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM); developing the regulatory framework that would support the strengthening of public-public and public-private partnerships for sustainable development; and increasing financing for Caribbean SIDS, specifically targeted to the priority areas identified above. [[IISD RS Sources] [Meeting Website]