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Chairperson's Report on Small States

Commonwealth Ministerial Group on Small States

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CHAIRPERSON'S REPORT TO CHOGM

Introduction

1. The Commonwealth Ministerial Group on Small States held its fourth meeting on 11 November at Durban on the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The meeting was chaired by the Hon Mrs Nkosazana Zuma, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of South Africa. Representatives of 37 member governments and observers from the World Bank, IMF, the European Commission and CARICOM attended the meeting.

2. In his introductory remarks, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, highlighted the main focus of the meeting, the interim report of the Commonwealth Secretariat/World Bank Joint Task Force on Small States. He drew attention to the main themes of the report, including the acute vulnerability of small states, and transitional costs of adjusting their economies into a more globalised world economy. He urged the international community to provide assistance for small states to achieve this transformation successfully.

3. Following her election, the Chairperson said that the meeting had a key responsibility of not only reviewing an important report prepared by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the World Bank but also to consider follow-up action to its recommendations. The chairperson urged the meeting to focus on priority areas in order to assist the two institutions to finalise the report and initiate action on the recommendations.

The Group adopted the draft agenda without amendment. The report of the Task Force was introduced by Sir Humphrey Maud, Co-Chairman of the Task Force, on behalf of the Commonwealth, and Mr Masood Ahmed, the Co-Chairman from the World Bank. Mr Frits van Beek of the IMF and Professor Francisco Granell of the European Commission also provided brief comments on the report.

Interim Report of the Task Force

5. On the interim report of the Task Force, Ministers:

• welcomed the interim report of the Task Force, Small States: Meeting Challenges in the Global Economy, as a landmark document with high political profile. They recognised that it had benefited from the close collaboration between the World Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat in its preparation, as well as the strong support from the IMF, WTO, UNCTAD and the European Commission;

• reviewed the report, noting that it was work in progress, emphasising the need to finalise it before the meeting of the Development Committee of the Bank and the Fund in April 2000, and calling for a continuation of the process of consultations with governments, key multilateral agencies and regional organisations to ensure that the final report is broadly acceptable to all stake-holders;

• urged all partner organisations to review and, where possible, enhance their policy statements before finalisation of the report;

• emphasised the need for follow-up work to pay particular attention to: globalisation and the transitional costs of integrating small states into a more globalised economy; risk management; deepening regional co-operation; and public and private sector arrangements to finance the rehabilitation and replacement of infrastructure damaged through disasters;

• expressed broad support for the recommendations of the report, in particular calls for the international community to provide assistance to small states to integrate their economies into a more liberal trading environment, and for special treatment for vulnerable small states in the WTO, with inclusion of an in depth examination of this issue in the Organisation's post-Seattle work programme;

• recognised the regular incidence of natural disasters and their deleterious effects on the development of many small states and called for strengthening international mechanisms for providing assistance to meet the pre-and post-disaster needs of vulnerable countries;

• urged the international community to pay particular attention to capacity building needs of small states in designing their programmes of assistance to these countries;

• welcomed with the Commonwealth Secretariat proposals in the report to assist small states and asked the Secretary-General to give priority to these in designing programmes for its next strategic plan, so that the Commonwealth continued to take a lead role in promoting the interests of small states in the international system, and requested that adequate resources be made available for this purpose;

• agreed that members of the Ministerial Mission, which was intrumental in establishing the Task Force, should continue to act as a monitoring mechanism and play an advisory role until completion of the work of the Task Force and its final report, and that implementation of the final report recommendations be similarly tracked;

• urged CHOGM to take into account the main elements of the report's recommendations in its own messages to members of the Commonwealth and the international development community;

• underscored the need for the Secretary-General to continue collaborative efforts with all partner organisations in order to ensure the implementation of the report's recommendations. They called for a Commonwealth co-ordinator to assist in this process with the UN system and others, and for agencies to come together in establishing regional facilities in support of small states; and

• thanked the Co-Chairmen of the Task Force for their excellent work in preparing the report.

6. There being no other business, the Chairperson thanked fellow ministers for their valuable contributions and closed the meeting.

Commonwealth Secretariat
International Convention Centre
Durban
12 November 1999