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Building Back Better: Reckoning with Size in Pursuit of Resilience

Economic development
Social development
Planning for development
Sustainable development and human settlements
10 July 2019|Event
ECLAC - Caribbean

The side event will consider the need to integrate resilience-building into sustainable development planning and practice in the Caribbean, in light of the inescapable impact of climate change on the environmental, infrastructural, economic and social wellbeing of Caribbean states. It is an opportunity for the UN community to reflect on the challenges faced by Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in building resilience, focusing in particular on the implications of size that compromise such efforts. Panelists will explore remedies through partnership and engagement with all stakeholders.

As the member States of the United Nations prepare to reaffirm commitment to four global development platforms at summit meetings to be convened in September on climate change, SIDS, SDGs and financing for development, this side event is intended to offer the small, highly vulnerable, heavily indebted middle income countries of the Caribbean yet another strategic opportunity to argue persuasively the newly compelling reasons why they are deserving of special consideration where support for their sustainable development process is concerned. The advent of catastrophic category five hurricanes in the Caribbean has made planning for and investing in resilience even more urgent for the countries of this subregion. How these middle-income countries, ineligible for concessional financing, achieve risk reduction and resilience-building in the face of persistently low growth, declining ODA and FDI, high levels of indebtedness and a harsh international environment replete with challenges like de-risking and blacklisting is the conundrum that they face today.

Time

 

 

 

 

1.15-1.30pm

Opening Remarks

  • Chair: H.E Lois Young, Permanent Representative of Belize to the UN and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)
  • Mr. Sainivalati S. Navoti, Chief of SIDS Unit, Division for Sustainable Development Goals, UN - DESA
  • Ambassador Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary-General, CARICOM

 

 

 

1.30 – 2.00pm

Presentations (7 minutes each):

  • Ms. Diane Quarless, Director, ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean
  • H.E. H. Elizabeth Thompson, Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations
  • Ambassador Sharman Yvonne Hyde, Chief Executive Officer, Ministry of Economic Development and Petroleum, Belize

 

2.00 – 2.30pm

Questions & Answers

  • Moderator: H.E Lois Young, Permanent Representative of Belize to the UN and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS)

 

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