New York, June 30, 2020. The Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS), released today a Statement on Debt, where stressed that the current COVID-19 Pandemic will have severe consequences for the sustainable development of SIDS as envisioned in the SAMOA Pathway and the 2030 Agenda. It further adds that the economic contractions now experienced by SIDS will have far reaching and enduring consequences for poverty eradication, employment, growth and social welfare. Also states that it will turn back development by decades.
AOSIS consists in 44 small islands from the regions of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, the Caribbean and the seas of Africa, India and South China. Cuba is member state of this organization.
The declaration emphasized that small island developing States (SIDS), by their own nature, are highly vulnerable to global exogenous shocks. It highlighted that SIDS, constrained by limited capacities and intrinsic vulnerabilities, therefore rely on tourism revenues, remittances, foreign direct investment and external borrowing to refinance outstanding external debt obligations, pay for imports, recover from disasters, invest into development and maintain a dignified standard of life for our citizens. The dramatic and sudden loss of these sources of income due to the Pandemic has made an already unsound situation unbearable.
It also explained that tourism accounts for up to 40 percent of GDP in many of SIDS countries and that the global lockdown and widespread restrictions on travel has collapsed the tourism industry and resulted in immediate negative impacts on tax revenue, foreign exchange earnings, and employment on our countries. The declaration further alerts of the danger of a domino effect to this collapse that pervades all other sectors and severely debilitates their fragile economies. It emphasize that for SIDS, the result is a derailment of their growth and macroeconomic stability and the resulting bloating of current account imbalances.
The Declaration also stressed the need for a holistic approach to address the numerous challenges SIDS face simultaneously, while advancing their sustainable development aspirations in order to make the most efficient use of our resources.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations