Bluewater Blueprints ... plus five.

Beginning at its seventh session in April, the United Nations Commission on Social Development (CSD) has been negotiating a "Declaration" of principles for adoption at the special session, and a more detailed "State of Progress and Initiatives" four future implementation of the BPOA. The Declaration recognize that: SIDS share a common aspiration for economic development and improved living standards; they are custodians of large areas of the world's oceans and have a high share of global biodiversity, and they are no the fore-front in the fight against climate change; solutions found for SIDS may provide examples beneficial to other countries of the world; and considerable efforts have been made at all levels to implement the BPOA, and that there is a need for these efforts to be further supplemented by effective support from the international community.

The Declaration also calls for: increased efforts to assist SIDS in obtaining the transfer of environmentally sound technology; support for capacity and institutional building programmes and projects in SIDS; the provision of effective means, including adequate, predictable, new and additional financial resources to support SIDS; the Secretary-General to improve existing institutional arrangements in the United Nations to effectively support SIDS; and the United Nations system to become more proactive in promoting and assisting sustainable development in SIDS.

A "State of Progress" document, among other things, emphasizes the sectoral areas which are under review, reinforces the fact that the BPOA remains a valuable and living framework for the sustainable development efforts being undertaken by SIDS, and acknowledges the action taken by all actors in support of activities relating to its implementation. As previously noted, the sectoral areas identified for urgent action include: climate change; natural and environmental disasters and climate variability; freshwater resources; coastal and marine resources; and energy and tourism. It also identifies specific "means of implementation" for several areas. These include sustainable development strategies, capacity-building resource mobilization and finance, globalization and trade liberalization, transfer of environmentally sound technology, vulnerability index, information management (SIDSnet), and international cooperation and partnership.

For the sectoral areas of climate change, the document recommends, among others, that the capacity of SIDS be improved to enable them to adequately respond and adapt to climate change, and also calls for improvement of work on capabilities for climate prediction. For natural and environmental disasters, on the other hand, it calls for improvement of work on capabilities for natural disaster reduction and early warning systems.

For freshwater resources, a recommendation calls for coordination and refocusing of aid programmes and projects designed to assist SIDS, within an integrated water resources management approach. For coastal and marine resources, a recommendation calls for the establishment and/or strengthening of programmes to build capacity, assess and manage the vast oceanic resources of SIDS, as well as specific regional or subregional arrangements.

On energy, there is a recommendation calling for the implementation in SIDS of best practices in achieving clean, sustainable energy resources and encouraging private sector involvement in the utilization of renewable energy resources and innovative financing schemes, with a view to longer-term self-sufficiency in energy resources.

A number of key recommendations on tourism include:

* Regional and national environmental assessment programmes to address the carrying capacity of natural resources, including the social, economic and cultural implications of tourism development;

* Strengthening of institutional capacity-building in the tourism sector, and promoting environmental protection and preservation of cultural heritage through local community awareness and participation;

* Improvement of the collection and use of tourism data as a means to facilitate the development of sustainable tourism; and

* Establishing partnerships for sustainable tourism to effectively conserve and utilize limited resources, based on consumer and market demand and the development of community-based initiatives. Destination marketing should preserve local culture and a healthy environment.

The "State of Progress" document recognizes that there must be a strong and committed partnership between SIDS and the international community, which together should pursue and support a number of goals, objectives, and activities, including through specific modalities, to assist in the continued implementation of the BPOA. The application of such modalities is of particular importance to the recommendations contained in the "means of implementation" section of the document.

Among the many recommendations in this section are a number which call for:

* The formulation of sustainable development strategies through transparent and participatory approaches;

* Continued development and implementation of sustainable development strategies to strengthen institutional capacity;

* Identification of programmes and projects, with particular reference to the areas identified for urgent action, which could be financed by the Global Environment Facility and other multilateral financial institutions;

* The international community to provide support to SIDS, as necessary, towards the improvement and strengthening of their capabilities in the field of trade policy, trade-efficiency policies, trade-in services, including electronic commerce , to assist them in coping with the challenge posed by globalization of markets;

* Building of capacities of SIDS for science and technology needs assessment and technology assessment;

* Coordination of efforts by the United Nations and other international organizations in the development of a vulnerability index (see box below) that would define the concept of vulnerability as it applies to SIDS and the identification of common elements of vulnerability, which render them susceptible to economic and ecological exogenous shocks;

* Ensuring that United Nations agencies and Member States take into consideration national and regional sustainable development strategies and mechanisms such as regional conventions, treaties and other regional agreements and/or arrangements adopted by SIDS, as the umbrella for programme design, in dose consultation with the SIDS of the regions concerned, thereby ensuring that the activities of the United Nations agencies are increasingly aligned with SIDS regional organizations' strategies, work plans and coordination mechanisms; and

* Strengthening of the existing institutional arrangements through more efficient use of resources in the United Nations to maximize support for SIDS, so that the United Nations, its agencies and regional commissions can become more effective in promoting and assisting sustainable development in SIDS.

As can be expected in negotiations of this type, there are still some key areas which have not yet been fully resolved: the issue of the transboundary movements of hazardous and radioactive wastes; and the issue of granting SIDS "special and preferential treatment" as a means to address what has been termed the "erosion of trade privileges". Both subject areas are difficult ones, but to date, there has been tremendous goodwill on all sides of the negotiations and there is every reason to expect that these thorny issues will also be resolved, as delegates from all around the world meet at the General Assembly's special session to examine the overall progress made since 1994.

Mr. John W. Ashe is Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, as well as his country's representative for sustainable development matters.

Point of View: What is the vulnerability index meant to measure? The need for a vulnerability index was first recognized during the 1994 Barbados Conference and is recommended in the Barbados Programme of Action (paras. 113 and 114). Inspite of its consideration in a number of forums, the United Nations has not yet formally adopted a specific vulnerability index. The vulnerability index is intended to measure the precariousness of States arising from their economic exposure, lack of protection and peripherality. It essentially consists of averaging a number of sub-indices that were considered as representing different facets of economic vulnerability. The sub-indices or components used for this purpose represent: * Trade openness (export, imports or both as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) * Export concentration * Peripherality (transport and freight costs in relation to foreign trade) * Energy dependence (imported energy as a ratio of energy consumed) * Financial dependence (aid or international debt as a ratio of GDP).

"There is a worrying possibility that within the United Nations system the vulnerability index could be reformulated to focus more on the characteristics of least developing countries (LDCs) than on SIDS, by including in it sub-indices that characterize LDCs rather than SIDS." SIDS should place their claim for special consideration on the basis of fragility and vulnerability, while LDCs can make a good case to back their demand for special attention from the international community with reference on their low gross national product per capita and their lack of diversification and other structural factors which inhibit development.

--Excerpts from an article, Operationalising the Economic Vulnerability Index, by Professor Lino Briguglio, Islands and Small States Institute, Malta