SIDS should acquire concessional financing given vulnerabilities - Dr. Singh

SIDS should acquire concessional financing given vulnerabilities – Dr. Singh

Jul 11, 2021 News

Senior Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, on Friday attended the virtual 2021 UN High-Level Political Forum

Kaieteur News – Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Hon. Dr. Ashni Singh, is strongly advocating for access to concessional financing for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) given their multi-dimensional vulnerabilities, and stressed that rigorous articulation of these vulnerabilities needs to be moved to the point of a universally accepted multi-dimensional index to form a basis on which access to concessional financing is allowed. He made this plea during the United Nations 2021 High-Level political forum titled ‘The Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) and Small Island Developing States held virtually on Friday.
Dr. Singh further stated that there is need for accelerated action on climate change. In addition, urgent steps need to be taken to harness the benefits of the blue economy, as well as acknowledgement of the global community longstanding developmental financing commitments must be delivered.
The Senior Minister has strongly advocated for access to concessional financing for SIDS given their multi-dimensional vulnerabilities. The Minister however told participants that the question of scale needs to be addressed after the first hurdle of access to concessional financing is crossed.
“The question of scale does need to be addressed because the reality is that adequate levels of concessional resources and adequate levels of development financing have not been mobilised to address the development challenges we face as a global community and the development challenges that SIDS in particular face,” said Dr. Singh.
The Senior Minister, while continuing to stress on the unique multi-dimensional
vulnerabilities faced by SIDS, alluded to the decades of research done under the auspices of the Commonwealth Secretariat in defining the peculiar vulnerabilities of small States but pointed out that rigorous articulation of these vulnerabilities needed to be moved to the point of a universally accepted multi-dimensional index in order to form a basis on which access to concessional financing is allowed.
“We have to recognise the oneness …however the interconnectedness of our world and this has been reiterated amply by the onset of COVID-19 which has reminded us that events on one side of the world affect us on the other side of the world, and so the reality is that the eradication of poverty globally is a global objective that we share and it is in everybody’s interest…the entire global community to ensure its achievement,” he stated.
While elaborating even more on the effects of COVID-19 on SIDS as well as other recent disasters, which these countries face, Minister Singh added, “there is clearly a strong and immediate recommitment to multilateralism and the shared objectives that we embrace as a global community.”
He concluded that there is need for accelerated action on climate change, urgent action to
harness the benefits of the ‘blue economy’ and the acknowledgement of the global community that long-standing developmental financing commitments (some dating all the way back to the 1970s) need to be delivered.
“We might think that we cannot afford to deliver on these commitments. I would say quite the opposite. We really as a global community cannot afford not to deliver on these commitments if we recognise the oneness, the interconnectedness and the intertwined nature of our nations in the global community,” Dr. Singh reiterated.

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