Dominica, 2014

I would like to begin by

congratulating His Excellency Mr. Sam Kutesa,

former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uganda, on his

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its sixty-ninth session. I would also like to take this

opportunity to thank His Excellency Mr. John Ashe

for his leadership of the Assembly at its sixty-eighth

session, and to salute Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

for his continued efforts to promote peace, security and

development throughout the world.

Dominica is among six small independent States in

the Caribbean that, together with three non-independent

small island territories, constitute the Organization of

Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The OECS States are

not simply small island developing States (SIDS), they

are very small island developing States, and therefore

among the most vulnerable members of the United

Nations family. Twenty years after the adoption of the

Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable

Development of Small Island Developing States, and

10 years after the approval of the Mauritius Strategy

for Implementation, most of the commitments made

to promote sustainable development in SIDS have yet

to be delivered. However, we remain hopeful that the

recently concluded third United Nations Conference on

Small Island Developing States, held in Apia, Samoa,

will have been a watershed moment for SIDS. We

expect the draft outcome document of the Conference

(A/CONF. 223/3) to create a new basis on which to

address the implementation gaps that continue to

stymie any movement towards sustainable development

in SIDS.

I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the

Government and people of Samoa on hosting a major

international conference. Their tenacity, determination

and commitment are a demonstration of what can be

achieved by SIDS, despite the many challenges they face.

One major outcome of the Samoa Conference was the

historic establishment of an all-SIDS — that is, SIDS-

SIDS — initiative aimed at creating an international

organization to serve as a platform for the development

of sustainable energy in SIDS, known as SIDS DOCK.

On 1 September, a treaty formally establishing SIDS

DOCK as an international organization was opened for

signature. Twenty of the 30 members of the Alliance

of Small Island States have signed on to the treaty. As

Chair of the SIDS DOCK Steering Committee, the

Government of Dominica wishes to thank the host

country, Samoa, the other Member States that are

signatories to the treaty, our partners — Denmark,

Japan, the United Nations Development Programme, the

World Bank, the United Nations Industrial Development

Organization, the Clinton Foundation, the secretariat

of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme, the

Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre — and

the SIDS DOCK secretariat and all the volunteers for

making that historic event possible.

Unfortunately, the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs) and the post-2015 agenda have not progressed

at a pace that those of us in the SIDS group would have

liked. Almost 15 years since the Millennium Declaration

was adopted (resolution 55/2), only a few countries

in the developing world have registered tangible

gains. The majority continue to wait for the promised

improvements in their living conditions. Nonetheless,

Dominica has been able to meet most of the MDGs,

notably in reducing poverty, improving access to

education, ensuring environmental sustainability and

building strong bilateral and multilateral partnerships.

Our progress in poverty reduction has been noted by

the Caribbean Development Bank, which stated in its

2009 report on Dominica that

“the level of poverty in Dominica has fallen from

39 per cent in 2003 to 28.8 per cent in 2009.

Absolute poverty, as measured by the indigence

rate, has also declined from 10 per cent in 2003 to

3.1 per cent in 2009.”

Our achievements in education have also surpassed

the targets set by the MDGs. Recognizing the

importance of education to our development agenda,

Dominica continues to make major investments in

improving access to quality education for our people.

To date, we can boast of universal access to education

at the early childhood, primary and secondary levels,

and access to post-secondary education is available to

all secondary-school graduates.

Dominica has always been guided by the principle

of the sustainable use of its natural resources and

the protection of its physical environment. For those

reasons, Dominica has been called the “Nature Island

of the Caribbean”. We therefore have much that we can

share with the United Nations family on the subject of

the sustainable use of natural resources. In our efforts

to protect and ensure environmental sustainability

and to rid our country of its reliance on fossil fuels for

generating electricity, the Government of Dominica has

invested, and continues to invest, in renewable energy.

Today about 20 per cent of the island’s electricity needs

are met from “clean” hydropower.

Additionally, however, the Government has been

pursuing the development of the country’s geothermal

resources. To date, the Government has invested

over $20 million in geothermal development. The

first production and reinjection wells have been

completed, and the results of the flow tests indicate

that the geothermal reservoir has a capacity to generate

sufficient electricity for domestic consumption and

for export to the neighbouring French territories of

Martinique and Guadeloupe. The first plant for purely

domestic consumption is expected to be commissioned

in 2016.

Dominica’s development achievements in general,

and the attainment of the MDGs in particular, have

been realized through the strong, visionary and

compassionate leadership of Prime Minister Roosevelt

Skerrit and his Cabinet, complemented by our hard-

working citizens and the kind cooperation of our

development partners. Our partnerships with the

European Union, the United States of America, Japan

and other developed countries have all contributed

significantly to the progress we have been able to make

thus far. The recent approval by the World Bank of the

Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience, which will

undertake a number of infrastructure projects designed

to transform Dominica into a climate-resilient and low-

carbon developing country and is expected, among other

benefits, to positively impact agricultural productivity

and food security in our rural communities.

South-South cooperation with partners from

developing countries, notably the People’s Republic of

China, Cuba, Morocco and Venezuela, and from the

Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, has

been able to complement the decreasing assistance from

traditional partners. We embrace all our development

partners and look forward to the deepening and

strengthening of our partnerships for the benefits of all

our people.

In spite of those achievements, we are a long

way from where we aspire to be. The spectre of the

deadly Ebola disease and the scourges of HIV/AIDS

and non-communicable diseases has the potential

to significantly impact our people and threaten the

gains made so far by small island developing States.

Therefore, that myriad of challenges calls for collective

global action to protect the gains that small island

States like Dominica have been able to achieve over the

past two decades and to lay a path for development that

is sustainable and people-focused.

Additionally, the impact of climate change remains

an existential threat to the people throughout the world

who call small island States their homes. The location,

level of development and vulnerability of our islands

make them very susceptible to the impact of climate

change. Very often, we refer to climate change and its

effects as a phenomenon that is to impact our global

community at some future date. The unfortunate

reality is that SIDS have already been suffering from

the impact of climate change. The increasing severity

of storms and hurricanes is becoming more prevalent,

and with every strike the extreme weather claims lives

and threatens our development efforts. According to a

2008 publication by the United States National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration, the Caribbean has

the second-greatest risk of hurricanes in the world.

The report also highlights the increased frequency of

tropical cyclones in our region.

The islands of the Caribbean are also prone to

earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, torrential

rains with accompanying landslides and flash

flooding. We in the Caribbean have therefore been on

the receiving end of the impact of climate change for

decades. A case in point is the impact of Hurricane

Ivan, a category-3 system that devastated the island of

Grenada on 7 September 2004. Hurricane Ivan exposed

the vulnerability that is inherent in SIDS. Twenty-

eight lives were lost and 18,000 people were left

without shelter, food or belongings. A post-Ivan study

conducted by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean

States reported that:

“The macro-economic assessment of the damages

caused by Hurricane Ivan, which wreaked havoc

on Grenada, inflicted damages totalling $1 billion,

more than twice the value of that country’s GDP”.

In more recent times, on 24 December 2013, a time

outside the traditional hurricane season, the Caribbean

islands of Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines were severely affected by a trough

system that brought with it heavy rains and high

winds. That slow-moving weather system left behind

approximately $128 million worth of direct damage.

Within less than 12 hours, each of those countries

suffered significant loss: Dominica — $17 million, or

3.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP); Saint

Lucia — $19 million, or 1.4 per cent of GDP; and Saint

Vincent and the Grenadines — $93 million, or 12.8 per

cent. The indirect impacts, which include the loss of

agricultural production and interruptions in other

economic activities, such as tourism, would increase

the overall effect significantly. The most devastating

hurricane to hit Dominica in living memory was

Hurricane David, on 29 August 1979, a category-5

hurricane that left the island devastated as if by war,

resulting in 43 deaths and with all public utilities,

infrastructure, 60 per cent of homes, roads and sea

defences totally destroyed.

Such natural disasters affect the daily lives of our

people and significantly retard our efforts to bring

about social and economic development. We therefore

call on all States Members of the United Nations to

take immediate actions to approve a legally binding

agreement to reduce the impact of climate change. The

climate change agenda must be an integral part of the

post-2015 agenda.

The creation of wealth and the generation of

economic growth are essential for the eradication of

poverty and the improvement of the quality of life of our

people. However, economic growth and development

should be inclusive and sustainable. The creation of

jobs and the delivery of social services should touch

the lives of all our people, especially the indigenous

people, the elderly, the disadvantaged, the disabled, the

vulnerable, and those people who are excluded from

mainstream society. The development of agriculture,

tourism, the energy sector and industry should therefore

be inclusive and sustainable.

Dominica therefore joins the rest of the Caribbean

Community in calling for development partners to

conduct their macroeconomic and trade policies in a

way that facilitates opportunities for SIDS to promote

economic growth, shrink existing income gaps, reduce

the levels of poverty and achieve their development

aspirations. Those policies should include, but not be

limited to, a change in the criteria for the graduation

of SIDS from preferential access to multilateral

concessionary financing. The new criteria must take

into account the inherent vulnerabilities of SIDS

and the need for building resilience to the impact of

climate change and the vagaries of the global financial,

economic and trading systems. Therefore, any measure

that inhibits any State Member of the United Nations

family from becoming fully integrated into the global

financial and trading system should be removed.

In that vein, the economic embargo against our

brothers and sisters in Cuba continues to be of concern

to us in the Caribbean. That unilateral action by the

United States of America against our sister Caribbean

island, whatever the excuses might have been 55 years

ago, cannot be justified today, nor can the suffering

of our brothers and sisters in the Republic of Cuba,

as a result of their exclusion for 55 years from the

world banking and trading system, be defended. It is

well established that, whatever the objectives were 55

years ago, they are not likely to be achieved through

the continuation of the embargo. The Government of

Dominica therefore calls on the United States to heed

the call of the General Assembly to lift the embargo

against Cuba and to support the full integration of the

Cuban people into the global financial and trading

systems.

The embargo notwithstanding, the Cuban people

continue to make a tremendous contribution to human

development across the globe. For decades, Cuba has

been training doctors, nurses, engineers and other

professionals, deploying them to provide technical

assistance to developing countries as part of its South-

South cooperation. Cuba also offers professional

training in various disciplines to thousands of students

from all over the developing world.

Cuba continues to add its voice in the fight against

terrorism and drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the

rest of the world. It is for that reason that Dominica

fails to comprehend the continued listing of Cuba as

a State sponsor of terrorism. We therefore call for the

removal of Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor

terrorism. Our efforts in the region should be focused

instead on combating the real threats to global peace

and security.

Similarly, the events unfolding in Ukraine are

a proxy tug-of-war between the European Union and

the United States, on the one hand, and the Russian

Federation, on the other. The Ukrainian people are the

victims of the contest, which is a throwback to the Cold

War.

The United Kingdom, when confronted with the

question of Irish nationalism in 1918, resolved the

matter through the ballot box with a county-by-county

referendum on the future of Ireland. Most counties opted

for independence, but five counties opted for continued

union with the United Kingdom. Three years later,

the island was partitioned into the Republic of Ireland

and Northern Ireland, the latter remaining part of the

United Kingdom. The United Kingdom currently faces

the question of Scottish independence. Once again,

only last week on 18 September, the United Kingdom

resorted to the ballot box to decide the matter. While the

supporters of the campaign in favour of independence

will be disappointed by the results, the real victors are

not the supporters of the campaign for continued union

with the United Kingdom but democracy itself.

With that experience, the United Kingdom is

uniquely placed to counsel the European Union, the

United States, Kyiv and Moscow about how to grant

the people of Ukraine the same opportunity to decide

their destiny for themselves, according to their regional

preferences and without coercion either from the East

or from the West. Such an approach would end the

paralysis in the Security Council, thereby creating a

real partnership among the United States, the Russian

Federation and China and enabling the United Nations

to fulfil its mandate to assist in conflict resolution,

combat the greatest threats facing the world today,

namely, armed conflict and terrorism, and create a

more peaceful international community.

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate to the General

Assembly that the impact of climate change is a

major threat to the development efforts and to the

very existence of small island developing States. The

incidence of severe weather conditions, including

coastal erosion and sea-level rise, continues to impact

island States in the worst ways possible. Our ability

to survive depends not only on the individual and

collective actions taken by SIDS, but also on the actions

of the rest of the international community.

A legally binding outcome to the climate change

negotiations is a critical component in a series of

actions to be taken by Member States. That should be

buttressed by a post-2015 agenda that includes poverty

eradication, increased access to education and training,

health care, potable water and sanitation, and promotes

sustainable and inclusive economic development.

The outcomes of the third United Nations

Conference on SIDS in Samoa should serve as a blueprint

for the growth and development of SIDS. That should

include the restructuring of the international financial

and trading architecture so that the vulnerabilities and

special circumstances of SIDS are taken into account.

That new configuration will allow for the development

of SIDS through sustainable agriculture, tourism

and inclusive industrial development. However, such

efforts must be propelled by sustainable energy that

maximizes the use of renewable SIDS-appropriate

energy resources in the most energy efficient manner.

Finally, I wish all participants in this sixty-ninth

session every success in their deliberations.