Follow-Up to and Implementation of the Sids Accelerated Modalities of Action (Samoa) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States

A/RES/78/232View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 18bFollow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, published in 2023.

What other versions does this mandate have?

10 versions · 2016–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/203

2024A/RES/79/203Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing StatesLatestCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/78/232Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing StatesCompare with previous version
2023A/RES/77/245Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing StatesCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/76/203Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing StatesCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/75/215Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing StatesCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Conferences Indexes International Years Partnership Programme Implementation Small Island Developing States Sustainable Development

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2024.

2024A/79/527Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

44 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Reiterates the call to the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiary bodies to monitor the full implementation of the Declaration of Barbados and the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the Samoa Pathway, including through the monitoring frameworks of the regional commissions, and recalls the discussion during the 2023 high-level political forum on sustainable development on the sustainable development challenges facing small island developing States, with the aim of enhancing engagement and implementing commitments;

Underlines the need to give due consideration to the issues and concerns of small island developing States in all relevant major United Nations conferences and processes and the relevant work of the United Nations development system, and calls for the elaboration of information specific to small island developing States in a disaggregated manner in all major United Nations reports, where appropriate;

Welcomes resolution 5/14 adopted by the United Nations Environment Assembly at its resumed fifth session and the convening of the intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastics, with the ambition of completing its work by the end of 2024;

Recalls with concern the findings and conclusions of the needs assessment resulting from the expanding mandates of the small island developing States units of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat and the Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, and emphasizes the need for allocation of adequate resources commensurate with the mandates of these units, taking into account the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States and its preparatory process;

Welcomes the continuing commitment of the international community to take urgent and concrete actions to address the vulnerabilities of small island developing States and to continue to seek new solutions to the major challenges facing them in a concerted manner in order to support the full implementation of the Samoa Pathway;

Invites the international community to consider how best multidimensional vulnerability could be reflected in existing practices and policies for debt sustainability and development support, including access to concessional finance;

Welcomes the commitments made by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in the communiqué of its high-level meeting of 2020, to improve policies and programmes to address the particular needs of small island developing States, and takes note of the launch of effectiveness principles for improving development impacts in small island developing States in Geneva in 2022 and the establishment of an AOSIS-DAC Task Force in 2023 to identify a common set of issues and areas for collaboration, to improve the effectiveness and impact of official development assistance, and to consider the issue of vulnerability to be launched at the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States;

Recognizes that small island developing States continue to face significant challenges in accessing sufficient affordable financing for sustainable development, including concessional financing, and in this regard encourages providers of development finance to consider the specific vulnerabilities of small island developing States in order to strengthen development cooperation;

Recalls paragraph 10 of its resolution 77/245 of 30 December 2022, in which it, inter alia, supported the proposed definitions for structural vulnerability and resilience and the two-level structure outlined in the interim report of the High-Level Panel on the Development of a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for Small Island Developing States as the basis for the Panel’s continued work, guiding the selection of appropriate indicators to inform vulnerability across all sectors of sustainable development, the proposed governance structure and the development of the country vulnerability-resilience profiles;

Welcomes the work of the High-Level Panel on the Development of a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for Small Island Developing States, which was co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, and the former Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, including its consultations with Member States, and in this regard takes note of the final report of the Panel and the recommendations contained therein;

Requests the President of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session to appoint two co-facilitators, one from a developing country and one from a developed country, to launch, as soon as possible, an intergovernmental process, supported through an interim secretariat provided jointly by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, to consider the recommendations presented in the final report of the High-level Panel on the Development of a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for Small Island Developing States, its applicability, scope, custodianship and governance and ways to further improve it that would allow for the implementation of the index, and to report back to the General Assembly by the end of its seventy-eighth session;

Requests the Secretary-General to assess how multidimensional vulnerability is currently considered by the United Nations system, explore the potential uses and application of the multidimensional vulnerability index, and to inform the intergovernmental process;

Reiterates that small island developing States continue to face loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow-onset events, resulting in unprecedented social, economic and environmental challenges that push debt to unsustainable levels, and in this regard calls for urgent and ambitious global action, in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement to avert, minimize and address the threat and impact of climate change on small island developing States;

Stresses the urgent and immediate need for new, additional, predictable and adequate financial resources to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in responding to economic and non-economic loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow-onset events, and looks forward to the timely and full operationalization of the new funding arrangements and a fund for responding to loss and damage;

Notes with concern the findings of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and that none of the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Targets were fully achieved, resulting in social, economic and environmental challenges in small island developing States, recognizes the unique opportunity offered for small island developing States’ degraded ecosystems and environmental resilience with the adoption of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, supports its implementation by 2030 and the subsequent launch of the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, and calls for urgent and ambitious global action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in line with the Framework;

Recognizes that improving small island developing States’ access to finance and debt management, as well as timely and orderly debt restructuring, is critical for their economic recovery, building resilience and sustainable development, and notes the call made by small island developing States for the establishment of a debt treatment mechanism to enable sound debt management for small island developing States that will allow for the use of state-contingent instruments;

Takes note of the Secretary-General’s findings regarding the limited capacity of small island developing States, including upper-middle-income and high-income small island developing States, to gain access to disaster-related funding owing to differing eligibility criteria and the quantum of resources required to gain access thereto, as well as the need for an enabling environment at all levels, invites international financial institutions to revise eligibility criteria and modalities that prevent access to resources, taking into consideration multidimensional vulnerabilities, and urges the international community to enhance the allocation of and access to sustainable and predictable financing for disaster risk reduction and other preventive measures as part of a comprehensive risk management framework that matches the scale of existing and future disaster risks, while taking into account the barriers that have prevented the effective mobilization of critical financing to small island developing States, especially for implementation of associated plans and strategies devised by small island developing States;

Recognizes the increasing impacts of disasters and exogenous shocks on the debt position of small island developing States, and encourages all creditors to mainstream, as appropriate, state-contingent debt instruments, such as disaster and climate-resilient debt clauses, that allow for temporary payment standstills or maturity extensions, ex-ante financing to enable the systemic reduction of disaster risk and resilience-building, as well as the disclosure of disaster risk to avoid exacerbating debt distress, further recognizing that small island developing States have limited access to financing before and after disasters;

Reaffirms that official development assistance, both technical and financial, can foster resilient societies and economies, and calls upon the international community to mobilize additional development finance from all sources and at all levels to support small island developing States’ efforts;

Recognizes with concern the transition challenges encountered by small island developing States that have graduated or are about to graduate from least developed country status, remains mindful that graduation must not disrupt a country’s development progress, and stresses the need for the development and implementation of a viable multi-annual transition strategy to facilitate each small island developing State’s graduation, with the support of the international community where appropriate, to mitigate against, inter alia, the possible loss of concessionary financing, to reduce the risks of falling heavily into debt and to ensure macrofinancial stability;

Reiterates the call to relevant institutions to learn from one another’s efforts to address the diverse circumstances of countries, to better manage transitions and graduation, recognizes that official development assistance should continue to focus on countries most in need, and takes note of a willingness to develop a wider analysis of new measures, building on existing experiences with eligibility exceptions, for concessional finance and multidimensional assessments, to address the limitations of an income-only assessment of development and graduation readiness;

Reiterates the call to Member States to invite the World Bank to consider reviving the high-level working group among the development banks and its partners to review the rules governing access for small island developing States to concessional finance;

Underlines the need to take targeted measures to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, to reduce inequalities and to promote the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for the poor and those in vulnerable situations;

Recognizes that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in small island developing States is not possible without private investment, including long-term foreign investment, which can be facilitated and attracted through the creation of an enabling environment and capacity support for small island developing States;

Acknowledges the important role that the Small Island Developing States Partnership Framework is playing in monitoring the progress of existing partnerships and encouraging the launch of new, genuine and durable partnerships, and in this regard welcomes the United Nations Small Island Developing States Partnerships Awards, which recognize and reward the most noteworthy small island developing States partnerships, and therefore reiterates its call for the Framework to be strengthened to continue its impact on communities, on human resources, capacity-building, the environment and enhanced knowledge-sharing, including information, data and improved coordination;

Recognizes that partnerships with relevant stakeholders are critical in building resilience, reducing disaster risk and achieving sustainable development and climate change adaptation at the local level, and takes note of the call for the establishment of the biennial regional multi-stakeholder small island developing States partnership dialogue with a view to facilitating means of implementation, inter alia, financing, investment, trade, technology transfer, on mutually agreed terms, capacity-building and creation of new partnerships, and looks forward to the scaling-up and development of durable and transformational partnerships at all levels;

Reaffirms the commitment to take urgent and concrete action to address the vulnerability of small island developing States, including through the sustained implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the Samoa Pathway, and underlines the urgency of finding additional solutions to the major challenges facing small island developing States in a concerted manner so as to support them in sustaining the momentum realized in implementing the Barbados Programme of Action, the Mauritius Strategy and the Samoa Pathway and achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;

Decides to designate 2024 as the second International Year of Small Island Developing States in accordance with resolution 67/206 of 21 December 2012;

Looks forward to the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, to be held in Antigua and Barbuda from 27 to 30 May 2024, and notes that its overarching theme shall be “Charting the course toward resilient prosperity”;

Welcomes the appointments of the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States as Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, respectively;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to ensure, by 2024, the allocation of adequate resources to respond to the expanding mandates of the small island developing States units of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Office of the High Representative in support of the sustainable development agenda of the small island developing States and the forthcoming fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States and its preparatory process, and calls upon the United Nations system to strengthen and promote coordinated, effective and coherent capacity-development support to small island developing States;

Reiterates its call for the Secretary-General to continue to use his convening powers to continue to work on devising solutions for small island developing States in relation to debt vulnerability in the immediate term and debt sustainability in the long term, with due regard to multidimensional vulnerability, including the potential of a multidimensional vulnerability index, as criteria to access concessional finance, and in this regard recalls the invitation to the Secretary-General to convene a high-level meeting during the Conference, with a wide variety of stakeholders, including the United Nations system, international financial institutions, development banks and multilateral development partners to discuss the mobilization of resources for small island developing States;

Acknowledges that small island developing States have demonstrated their commitment to promoting sustainable development and, to that effect, have mobilized resources at the national and regional levels despite their limited resource base, and welcomes the long-standing cooperation and support provided by the international community and the private sector, which have played an important role in helping small island developing States to make progress in addressing their vulnerabilities and in supporting their sustainable development efforts;

Calls for continued and enhanced efforts to assist small island developing States and for a strengthening of United Nations system support to small island developing States, in keeping with the multiple ongoing and emerging challenges faced by those States to achieving sustainable development;

Takes note of the schedule for the preparatory committee, co-chaired by the Permanent Representatives of Maldives and New Zealand to the United Nations, to facilitate the intergovernmental process for the outcome document for the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, and in this regard calls upon all relevant stakeholders to work constructively and in collaboration with small island developing States;

Looks forward to the ongoing process under the preparatory committee that will result in an intergovernmentally agreed, focused, forward-looking and action-oriented political outcome document for the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, which will articulate priorities for small island developing States and define concrete, measurable targets for their development and relevant means of implementation for the next 10 years, building on the priorities identified by those States in the outcomes of the 2023 regional preparatory meetings for the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, held from 24 to 26 July in Mauritius, from 8 to 10 August in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and from 16 to 18 August in Tonga, as well as the outcome of the interregional meeting held from 30 August to 1 September 2023 in Cabo Verde, and calls upon all Member States and relevant stakeholders to work cooperatively with small island developing States in this important endeavour;

Recalls that the Conference will be convened at the highest possible level and will include a high-level segment;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to provide all appropriate support to the work of the preparatory process of the Conference and to the Conference itself and to ensure inter-agency cooperation and effective participation and coherence within the United Nations system, as well as the efficient use of resources, so that the objectives of the Conference can be addressed;

Recalls paragraphs 37, 38 and 39 of resolution 77/245 on participation in the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, and in this regard reiterates the call to international and bilateral donors, as well as the private sector, financial institutions, foundations and other donors to support the preparations for the Conference through voluntary contributions to the trust fund in support of preparations for the Conference and to support the participation of representatives of developing countries, priority being given to small island developing States, including coverage of economy-class air tickets, daily subsistence allowances and terminal expenses, and the invitation for voluntary contributions to support the participation of developing countries in the Conference;

Stresses the need for the effective participation of civil society, including non-governmental organizations and other major groups, particularly from small island developing States, in the Conference, and invites voluntary contributions to support their participation;

Recognizes that there is an urgent need to assist small island developing States in strengthening their statistical offices and to provide enhanced support in developing national capacities for improved data collection and statistical analysis, including high-quality and disaggregated data, and welcomes the decision by the Government of Antigua and Barbuda to establish a small island developing States Centre of Excellence that will include a small island developing States global data hub that will be launched at the Conference;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly, at its seventy-ninth session, a report on the follow-up to and implementation of the Samoa Pathway, including on progress made and continuing challenges faced, on the implementation of the present resolution, building on the discussions and outcomes of the national, regional and interregional preparatory meetings, as well as the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States and the final report of the High-level Panel on the Development of a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its seventy-ninth session, under the item entitled “Sustainable development”, the sub-item entitled “Follow-up to and implementation of the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway and the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States”.

50th (resumed) plenary meeting

22 December 2023

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