KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC—St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said Monday he had used the just-concluded fourth international conference on small island developing states (SIDS 4) to raise the issue of developed countries not meeting their financial and other obligations to SIDS.
Gonsalves told a news conference here that pressure has been mounting on the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank to make it harder for SIDS to acquire loans at concessionary rates or even grants from international development partners to ensure the future socio-economic development of SIDS.
He said that at one of the conference’s side events, he and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley sought to change the paradigm regarding softer loans to SIDS.
“There were a lot of proposals as to what we will do the day after tomorrow and the day after. I am concerned about those and defending what we have now because it doesn’t make sense to go after the shadow inside the water and leave the natural bone. Watch video
“Look, our commitments from developed countries have not been met. Countries are not meeting their pledges concerning official development assistance, which are grants,” Gonsalves said, adding that some of these commitments date back to 2009.
He said then that developed countries had committed to providing US$100 billion annually for developing countries affected by climate change by 2020.
“This has not happened. Nothing. I haven’t seen any of that yet. Nobody sees any of that money. Then, they set up the loss and damage fund they set up…without any money. A fund without any money is an oxymoron,” Gonsalves told reporters.
He said that in Dubai last year, countries made “small” contributions to the loss and damage fund, describing the donations as “nothing very significant.
“The point is that we have to make all the time that for loss and damage, what about helping me with things to prevent loss and damage. Upfront monies, grants, and soft loans to deal with my bridges and roads…”.
Gonsalves said an essential funding source comes from IDA, “but they had internally put about this proposal to harden the terms for small island developing states, small island economies, where their per capita income annually has gone above US$7,900”.
He said St Vincent, the Grenadines, and several other regional countries, including Domenica, Grenada, and St. Lucia, were above that margin.
“They want to harden those terms. When we get IDA monies over the whole period between two and three percent, they want to harden them to between three and over six percent.
“And they want to reduce the 50 years, 10 years grace, sometimes 45 years…they want to reduce that to 35 years and to increase the amount of interest roughly from three percent to six percent”.
Gonsalves said that’s “a major problem” for SIDS, adding, “You can’t adapt to climate change unless you get cheap long-term money.”
He said the SIDS is not responsible for climate change and that he uses various factors to speak quite forcefully about it.
He said he had written to almost all the world’s leaders regarding the issue of IDA funding, “and that’s one of the reasons I went to Antigua.
“I told you I would fight this, and we are fighting it. I told you I was going to go to SIDS to deal with this, and at the UN in September, we will deal with it,” he said, adding that he believes the pressure is beginning to have an effect.
“I frame it as they want to pit the most vulnerable against the poorest …the fact of the matter is that the money is going to IDA from the developed countries, and the money has declined.
“One of the things they will tell the people at IDA is you have to give money to Ukraine … All these things connect, and our people have to understand the world in which we live, and you have to be able to maneuver this world and find spaces to keep ourselves as a functioning society,” Gonsalves said, adding” you better believe it.”
Download video – SVG Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on obligations
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