Administrator Helen Clark calls for action

Helen Clark is adamant. She says action must be taken after the Third Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S.) conference or the meeting would have been a waste of time.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer yesterday, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (U.N.D.P.) did not dismiss questions about the lack of implementation, that have been raised by some S.I.D.S.

“I can empathise with what they are saying about the lack of follow through in the past,” she said. “We can’t let that happen this time, and certainly at the U.N.D.P. we are looking at how can we lift our act to make the Pathway meaningful.

“For the U.N. development system, we will take the S.A.M.O.A Pathway and say where can we add value.”

After that, she said discussions then must be held country-by-country through the relationships U.N.D.P. has with regional bodies such as the Pacific Islands Forum and Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

“So the issue will be how to take the Pathway and translate into the national and regional action plans,” she said.

Helen Clark (pictured left) is adamant. She says action must be taken after the Third Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S.) conference or the meeting would have been a waste of time.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer yesterday, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (U.N.D.P.) did not dismiss questions about the lack of implementation, that have been raised by some S.I.D.S.

“I can empathise with what they are saying about the lack of follow through in the past,” she said. “We can’t let that happen this time, and certainly at the U.N.D.P. we are looking at how can we lift our act to make the Pathway meaningful.

“For the U.N. development system, we will take the S.A.M.O.A Pathway and say where can we add value.”

After that, she said discussions then must be held country-by-country through the relationships U.N.D.P. has with regional bodies such as the Pacific Islands Forum and Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

“So the issue will be how to take the Pathway and translate into the national and regional action plans,” she said.

“And then work out what the role each of us is in supporting that, so I think we can be quite systematic about it.”

While at the conference, one of the topics Ms. Clark presented on was graduating least developed countries, such as Samoa.

“One of the issues I am going to address in the session on graduating L.D.C.s is, that the issues that make countries L.D.C.s don't go away with graduation,” she said.

“So Samoa has done extremely well, now classified as a middle income country, but as we know there is always a cyclone around the corner.

“Now heaven forbid that it will be the type of cyclone like Typhoon Haiyan, more powerful than human beings have ever experienced. And then with the tsunami triggered by the earthquake we saw the vulnerability from that in Samoa.”

She said the point is, countries can be doing very well, but there are inherent vulnerabilities from the geographical location and that means there is going to need to be continual understanding from the development partners about this issue development.

“It is not a question of you have reached that level and you will never drop back,” said the U.N.D.P Administrator.

“No there could be very serious setbacks, which are shocks external to anything that the Samoan Government and people could be expected to manage.”

She said the U.N.D.P had, as a key part of its new strategic plan, three pillars: sustainable development pathways, improving governance and building resilience.

“All of which are highly relevant to Samoa,” she said.

“And on the building resilience to supporting countries to have very good early warning systems, very good planning for disaster management (and) risk mitigation.

“Try to adapt infrastructure so that its less vulnerable get the cyclone shelters in place.

“Really just try and lift the level of resilience, and it does work.

“With climate change we are looking at the face of the future with Haiyan we are looking at more extreme, more frequent storms than we have ever seen.

“So this has to be a key focus for Pacific S.I.D.S, a key focus to just keep lifting the level of awareness, response capacity and mitigation.”

The S.I.D.S conference continues.