The Seychelles Vice President has called for targeted support for small economies or developing countries as a key component in facilitating the meaningful participation of Small Island Developing States in world trade and enabling sustainable development.

Speaking at a specially convened Round Table in the side-lines of the Third Financing for Development Summit under the theme “Ensuring policy coherence and an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development”, Vice President Danny Faure spoke of the barriers faced by SIDS, in particular their exclusion from key policy discussions:

“It is a fact that SIDS participation in world trade in goods and services remains relatively low. “We are supportive of initiatives being undertaken by WTO to look into small economies such as SIDS and we call on the international to further include us when it comes to decision making. By listening to us and understanding our particular situation, we can together better incorporate sustainable economies polices in the spirit of global partnership.

”Despite Seychelles’ proven track record of coordinating local policies to create the best enabling environment possible, the Vice President emphasised that it was global issues such as climate change as well as the large debt burden born by small economies as being the biggest obstacles to achieving sustainable development ambitions.

The Vice President highlighted these areas as key development spaces where the international governing bodies, that have a role in policy advancement, should endeavour to develop better-targeted support. He further added that these issues should be supported through innovative thinking and the development of a Vulnerability Index.

Vice President Danny Faure was accompanied by the Minister for Finance, Trade and Blue Economy, Mr Jean-Paul Adam, and the Special Advisor to the Vice President, Mr. Hans Aglae.

The FfD3 is a UN meeting being held at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa from the 13th to 16th July and has brought together Heads of States and Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, as well as all relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities from around the world to discuss and agree on the financing modalities of the post-2015 development agenda.