UNITED NATIONS, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda is pushing for further recognition of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Global Centre of Excellence (COE), which is expected to be launched during the first week of the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) that gets underway here on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Gaston Browne will be among the officials addressing the launch, outlining the role the Centre will play in transforming how the international community addresses the unique vulnerabilities and development aspirations of small island nations.
“The SIDS Center of Excellence is the tangible, operational answer to the pledges made in the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS). It is the mechanism designed to finally turn our decade of strategies into a century of sovereign, resilient prosperity,” Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Walton Webson, told an event here over the last weekend.
Webson said that the COE is one of the most significant outcomes of the SIDS4 Conference, hosted on the Caribbean island last year, and in a direct appeal to investment and development partners, urged that they not see the Centre of Excellence as a cost, but “as a strategic investment in global stability and a sustainable future”.
Webson, who is the Permanent Representative of Tuvalu to the United Nations, Ambassador Tapugao Falefou, and the Permanent Representative of the Solomon Islands, Jane Waetara, participated in a panel hosted by the PVBLIC Foundation during its Partnerships Day at the United Nations headquarters.
The event brought together leaders, innovators, and changemakers as part of the PVBLIC Foundation’s mission to spark collaboration and accelerate progress on some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Webson said that it is a vision that aligns with the SIDS Centre of Excellence, which itself is envisioned to be a game changer for island nations in addressing some of their most urgent imperatives.
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