Remarks by H.E. Mr. Abdulla Shahid, President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly

26 April 2022

 

Excellencies,

Dear friends and fellow islanders,

I thank UN-Habitat and UNDP for organizing today’s meeting on Urban Resilience for Small Island Developing States, or SIDS.

SIDS have a collective population of 65 million, with more than half living in urban areas.

This rapid urbanization has generated high population density on limited land areas, giving rise to inadequate housing and infrastructure. And often in unsustainable ways. In addition, urban sprawling pushes settlements and infrastructure towards the coastlines, threatening the viability of these urban cities.

With one-third of the SIDS population living on land barely 5 meters above sea level, there is an increasing need to address the gaps in unsustainable urban planning.

In this context, implementing the New Urban Agenda in SIDS means recognizing the different characteristics of urban centers, and introducing targeted and context specific interventions. This is particularly so for those who inhabit areas highly vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters and demands rigorous and integrated land use planning.

My friends,

I commend today’s coalition of stakeholders, which includes mayors, business leaders, financial institutions, governments, and multilateral agencies.

Your presence here reflects the growing appetite for more resilient urban planning. That, combined with the emergence of new digital solutions that can support policymakers and national governments around sustainable urban planning, give me cause for hope.

Today’s meeting is a welcome opportunity to shore up momentum on this front, and to harness frontier technology and local knowledge, together.

Allow me to underscore two key factors in this regard.

First, characteristics of urban areas and land titles are different among SIDS. For SIDS, urban areas can include small towns and villages, a single island or a series of islets. This definition of urban areas is specific to the unique topography of

SIDS and must be taken into consideration in the design and implementation of urbanization policy

Linked to this is the issue of land rights. In the Pacific SIDS for example, most lands have customary land rights, prompting the need for local knowledge and participation in urban planning.

Second, the digital and data divide is a persistent issue for SIDS. New technology means new challenges, as the digital and data divide continues to persist. Addressing urban resilience will require addressing these issues, particularly through capacity building and technology transfer.

Efforts to implement new innovations and intelligent modelling will be futile without technological infrastructure to support such measures.

Excellencies, dear friends,

Whether we achieve urban resilience through new or traditional knowledge, there is no development discussion, and certainly no concrete action, without sufficient mobilization of resources.

For SIDS, the additional burdens of the pandemic have hampered GDP growth and generated risks of debt burden. These costs to counter the pandemic, have come on top of the financial burdens SIDS have already been shouldering in tackling climate change.

The international community must step up its efforts to deliver on development and climate finance with equal distribution and support towards mitigation and adaptation efforts.

And partnerships will be key to this.

I urge each of us to use the opportunity provided by the High-Level Meeting on the New Urban Agenda, to drive constructive and value-added discussions on targeted interventions that will support resilient urbanization in SIDS.

I look forward to the outcomes of these discussions and pledge my support in helping mobilize much-needed momentum and financial support towards the New Urban Agenda.

I thank you