Photo: SPREP. Retrieved from samoaobserver.ws
Samoa is passing the baton to Antigua and Barbuda this month as host of the Fourth International Conference on Small Islands Developing States.
Over 3,000 registered delegates will descend upon the Caribbean islands to chart a course toward resilient prosperity for all Small Islands Developing States. Held every ten years, Samoa was host of the last International SIDS conference in 2014.
Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) comprise 37 UN member nations and 20 associate members of regional commissions – including the Pacific Island nations. With remote economies prone to natural disasters, SIDS was formally recognised as a special case in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development. Occupying less than 0.5 per cent of the world’s land surface these islands are spread across three key regions, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.