Small States: Building Resilience and Competitiveness

Thirty-two of the Commonwealth’s 53 member countries are small states – mostly with populations of less than 1.5 million. The Secretariat attaches high priority to supporting their integration in the global economy, building their resilience and competitiveness, and helping them take advantage of the opportunities and meet the challenges arising from globalisation.


	Tourism is of increasing importance to small states such as Barbados, but many small states are also vulnerable to natural disasters

The 2000 Report of the Commonwealth Secretariat/World Bank Joint Task Force on Small States identified characteristics of small states that have important implications for their development – remoteness and insularity, susceptibility to natural disasters, and limited institutional capacity, diversification and openness. Other emerging challenges include preference erosion for traditional exports, creating an urgent need to diversify into new economic activities; increased environmental susceptibilities; and rising concerns with respect to youth unemployment, security and crime, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Commonwealth advocacy, policy development and consensus-building activities promote international attention to and provide greater support for the special needs of small states, which are also addressed across the entire range of the Secretariat’s technical assistance programmes.

Advocacy and policy development

Implementing the recommendations of the 2000 Joint Task Force Report has been a major activity during the last two years. The Secretariat collaborated with the World Bank in organising the third Small States Forum in Dubai in 2003 and the fourth in Washington DC in 2004, and a major review of the report agenda underlined the need for small states to increase competitiveness and improve their investment climate.

The sixth meeting of the Ministerial Group on Small States (MGSS), in Nigeria in December 2003, noted that the need to combat terrorism and address increased security risks had diverted resources away from development and increased indebtedness. Capacity-building and retention of expertise was critical to the sustainable development prospects of small states.

During 2003-2005, the Secretariat acted on the MGSS’s recommendation to strengthen collaboration with other organisations, facilitating meetings of small states IGOs – the Caribbean Community, Pacific Islands Forum and Indian Ocean Commission. Discussions in 2005 covered the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster and the potential role of IGOs in strengthening disaster warning systems.

The Secretariat has worked with the UNDP to explore the constraints that Swaziland faces in accessing concessional resources and their impact on development efforts. The study argues for lower middle-income small states to be given special treatment in accessing concessional resources when faced with constraints likely to endanger development.

The Secretariat has also highlighted the concerns of small states faced with the possibility of graduating from the list of LDCs. This leads to loss of preferential treatment for trade, aid and financing, which can jeopardise sustainable development, if appropriate transition arrangements are not provided.

The annual publication Small States: Economic Review and Basic Statistics provides economic statistics on small states and analysis of recent economic trends. Information on small states work was also disseminated through the small states website, www.commonwealthsmallstates.org.

The Joint Office for Commonwealth Permanent Missions to the UN provides office space, research and administrative support to enable 11 Commonwealth small states to enjoy effective representation at the UN in New York.

Environmentally sustainable development

In helping member states to achieve the goals they set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), the Secretariat’s work has focused on partnerships and approaches that ensure economic, social and environmental concerns are addressed in a balanced way.

The WSSD Johannesburg Plan of Implementation covers areas as diverse as poverty eradication, health, trade, education, science and technology, regional concerns, natural resources and institutional arrangements. To promote greater understanding of this and enable interested parties to work together to achieve its goals, the Secretariat worked with other partners to publish a plain language guide to WSSD.

The ministerial-level Commonwealth Consultative Group on Environment met in Jeju, Korea, in March 2004 and New York, USA, in April 2005, focusing its discussions on the related issues of water, sanitation and human settlements. Ministers recognised that without effective environmental management of watersheds, forest resources, waste streams and climate change/desertification, there can be no sustainable provision of clean water in sufficient quantities to meet the MDGs. Commonwealth experiences on partnerships for sustainable development were fed in to a UN Roundtable of African ministers, businesses and NGOs in April 2005 on the provision of water and energy services.

Sustainable development of small island states

In January 2005, the Mauritius International Meeting reviewed implementation of the 1994 Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The Commonwealth worked closely with regional organisations representing SIDS (the CARICOM Secretariat, Indian Ocean Commission Secretariat and PIFS) to help co-ordinate and strengthen their role in the Mauritius negotiations and in implementing the outcomes. It placed CFTC experts in the Pacific and AIMS (Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea) regions to support preparations for the meeting and its follow-up. It also assisted in the preparation of national assessment reports and case studies.

In response to issues raised during these preparations, the Secretariat worked with the University of Malta and a group of experts to examine the elements of resilience that enable small states to manage their inherent economic vulnerability and build competitiveness. Issues discussed at expert meetings in 2004 and 2005 were published in the resource book Economic Vulnerability and Resilience of Small States. Technical work has begun on a resilience index.

International financial sectors

The Secretariat supports small states in pursuing a level playing field in the international financial sector industry. It facilitated discussion forums between the OECD and non-member jurisdictions, to provide dialogue on OECD policies deemed harmful to small jurisdictions. These enabled participants to address the concerns of these jurisdictions regarding OECD initiatives and make suggestions towards more equitable policies and practices. The conclusions drawn at these meetings are forwarded for discussion at the OECD Global Forum.

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