UN General Assembly
2020

As the global community contends with the devastating impact of the pandemic, we must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that the current challenges of SIDS is a symptom of a broader problem: the failure of our international institutions to keep pace with, and adapt to, the practical reality faced by SIDS. We must acknowledge that the global economic architecture, created post Second World War, never considered Small Island Developing States. And despite the empathy and the understanding of the technocrats at the International Monetary 6/62 21-00395 13/01/2021 A/75/592/Add.9 Fund, the World Bank and our own Caribbean Development Bank, as well as other IFIs, they remain constrained by their own inflexible governance structures. For decades now, SIDS have been extremely vocal in highlighting the fact that this system has produced some of the most incredible paradoxes for our nations. They include the fact that: ¥ SIDS are the most indebted, yet we are the least likely to get debt relief or concessional financing.