UNITED NATIONS-Antigua Prime Minister holding meetings on MVI

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UNITED NATIONS, CMC – Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne Wednesday began attending meetings primarily focused on actualizing the progress made on the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI).

Prime Minister Browne, together with former Norway prime minister Erna Solberg, are Co-Chairs of the United Nations High-Level Panel (HLP) on the MVI, which seeks to introduce a more accurate reflection of the needs of countries whose vulnerabilities increase their exposure to external shocks.

“By the current measurements, like a country’s Gross National Income (GNI), vulnerable states are limited in the concessionary financing they can access to recover from major disasters.

“The MVI seeks to change this by developing an inclusive approach that not only considers a country’s fiscal state but its ability to respond to major climatic events like a disastrous hurricane or global economic shocks,” according to a statement.

It said that Prime Minister Browne, co-Chair of the HLP, will lead discussions at the two-day retreat at the United Nations Headquarters with economists, policymakers, and leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) who have an abiding interest in bringing the MVI to reality.

Browne is also scheduled to hold bilateral discussions with UN Secretary-General António Guterres “on the progress of work so far on the MVI” and the Fourth SIDS Conference that will be held in Antigua and Barbuda in 2024.

The statement said Prime Minister Browne would take the opportunity to discuss the challenges arising from the economic fallout that gripped Antigua and Barbuda and other SIDS due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before his return to St. John’s on Friday, Browne will hold bilateral discussions with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, and the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, Dame Barbara Woodward.

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