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St Lucia Concerned Over Problems for Small Island Developing States

Posted on: Saturday, 17 September 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website on 16 September

United Nations: St Lucia Friday [16 September] expressed grave concern over what it perceives to be the "growing despair and cynicism about the future of Small Island Developing States (SIDS)," and urged developed countries to immediately stop any further marginalisation.

Foreign Affairs Minister Petrus Compton told the ongoing United Nation's World Summit that his country is deeply concerned about "sharply contradictory" actions by the global community of nations.

He said he was concerned that there were countries that can promote, with so much enthusiasm, "their determination to work toward achieving a world free of hunger, poverty and disease at the same time that the strong and powerful are adopting positions in other chambers, which have the effect of increasing the marginalisation and destroying the limited opportunities for survival of the small, the disadvantaged and the weak."

Additionally, Compton said St Lucia is deeply troubled that fellow UN members were engaging in activities at the World Trade Organization (WTO) inimical to the survival of weak, vulnerable SIDS.

"In face of such insensitivity how can small and vulnerable banana producing countries, like St Lucia and Dominica, or small sugar producing states, like St Kitts and Nevis, be expected to hold faith, confidence or hope in the declarations that are customarily issued at the end of our summits?"

"Our economies may be small and vulnerable, but our citizens are real people, who have the same aspirations as others everywhere, for prosperity, security and peace. They, too, have a right to freedom from want, freedom from hear, and freedom to live in dignity."

Compton said time is running out on the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations, and urged that concerted efforts be made for a speedy realization of that promise.

He called on developed countries to honour their pledge in increasing levels of assistance to SIDS, as promised at the Monterrey Summit in March 2002.

"St Lucia believes that overseas development assistance must continue to play an important role in the development of our economies," he said.

However, the Foreign Minister said St Lucia remains convinced that there is greater dignity in the facilitation, promotion, and realization of regional countries' capacity for trade.

He pointed out that SIDS' insistence on the right to engage in cross-border trade is on terms that they view as fair and a demonstration of their commitment to take primary responsibility for their own development.

Compton said a "political will" is necessary to help solve the world's problems.

"We have it in our power to create a world free from hunger, poverty and disease," he said.

"We have it in our power to create a world, where all its citizens can live in larger freedom. The technology and the material wealth exist to allow us to do so today more than at any other time in the history of mankind."

Source: BBC Monitoring Americas

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