Prime Minister Gaston Browne has renewed his call for special assistance from the
world’s leading financial systems to help Small Islands Developing States (SIDS),
which he said are ‘drowning in debt.’
The prime minister was delivering the keynote address to an interactive meeting,
that was called to examine ways to help SIDS navigate the global financial system
to their benefit. According to PM Browne, for more than thirty years the alarm has
been sounded that SIDS are drowning in debt. “We've been saying it for over 30
years. SIDS are drowning in debt; and the global financial system is a weighted
vest, dragging us further down. It is not the life jacket it pretends to be,” he
declared.
PM Browne, who co-chairs the UN High-Level Expert Panel for the
Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI), recalls that each year, SIDS are
asked to demonstrate and find new ways to justify calls for debt relief or to find
and present new, innovative ways to address them.
However, given the situation in which SIDS find themselves, the Antigua and
Barbuda leader is suggesting that grant financing should be the way to help these
states. “SIDS are so vulnerable, and debt stricken with little fiscal space. We need
grant-based finance. We need debt forgiveness and restructuring. These requests
should not be considered a hand-out. Most of all, we need to be believed and we
need you to honour your commitments to us,” he stated.
The prime minister went on to share that “delivering the Multidimensional
Vulnerability Index, and securing a stable governance structure to ensure its
continuous refinement is a step in the right direction.”
PM Browne lauds the work being done to create the MVI, for while not perfect, it
offers a better framework to fully analyze a country’s vulnerability, especially to
external shocks.
He described the MVI as a universal ranking of all developing countries’
vulnerability to external shocks; it provides the unbiased justification SIDS need
for International Financial Institutions, like the World Bank and the IMF to no
longer simply ignore the plight of SIDS when they are inevitably struck by crises
beyond their control.
PM Browne also notes that the MVI, as a tool, also has its shortcomings. “In my
time chairing the UN High-Level Expert Panel for the MVI, I have come to realise
that measuring vulnerability is a difficult, politically fraught business. However, at
the same time, I am convinced now more than ever, how absolutely necessary it is
that we do so and the urgency within which it is required,” he stated.
Antigua and Barbuda will host the 4 th SIDS conference next year when
approximately 5,000 visitors are expected to attend.
