A special summit at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has stressed the need for “special and differential treatment” of small island developing States.

Seven Heads of State and Government and approximately 60 agriculture ministers and government officials representing 30 countries convened in Rome to review of the Mauritius Strategy to Further Implement the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), adopted in January 2005. Participants at the 23 November 2005 ministerial meeting issued the Rome Declaration in support of SIDS. The Declaration considered the development of agriculture, forestry and fisheries to be of “vital importance” for national economic growth, social stability, environmental resilience and the elimination of poverty, hunger and malnutrition in SIDS. Participants also expressed their belief that SIDS have a right to receive “special and differential treatment,” and called on the sixth WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong to pay greater attention to the “special needs and specificities of small states.” FAO News Release, November 2005.