Question : The 2021 edition of UNCTAD’s Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures report, released on 10 June, highlights the numerous strengths and challenges of —
a. Small Island Developing States
b. Small Landlock Countries
c. Desertified Small Countries
d. None of the above
Ans. a.
- The 2021 edition of UNCTAD’s Development and Globalization: Facts and Figures report, released on 10 June, highlights the numerous strengths and challenges of Small Island Developing States(SIDS).
- SIDS face an uphill battle as they strive to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis amid vulnerabilities worsened by the pandemic.
- UNCTAD’s 15th quadrennial ministerial conference —
- The report is published ahead of UNCTAD’s 15th quadrennial ministerial conference to be held online from 3 to 7 October, hosted by Barbados, one of the SIDS. The contributions and vulnerabilities of SIDS will be key elements of the discussions at the conference.
Key points —
- While SIDS are a diverse group of countries, they share many socioeconomic and environmental challenges. SIDS are highly vulnerable to external economic and financial shocks, at least 35% more than other developing countries, according to the report.
- It also analyses the concepts of smallness, and islandness as a function of remoteness or isolation.
- It says 2020 was a particularly challenging year for SIDS.
- In the wake of the pandemic, SIDS experienced an estimated fall in GDP of 9% in 2020, compared with a 3.3% decline in other developing countries based on IMF projections data.
- Services exports contribute on average 25% to SIDS’ GDP and almost half of their exports consist of travel services.
- In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, SIDS suffered an estimated 70% drop in travel receipts in 2020.
- The UN World Tourism Organisation estimates that it could take up to four years for international tourism, an essential source of jobs and livelihoods, to recover to levels observed in 2019.
- SIDS import more goods than they export – 24 of them had a negative trade balance in goods of more than 55% of imports in 2020.
- Many SIDS have built strong service economies. The service sector accounted for over 70% of SIDS’ GDP in 2019, compared with 66% in 2005.
- On average, two in three people work in services in the island economies, half of men and three in four women, often in jobs related to tourism.
- From 2016 to 2019, many SIDS ran large current account deficits and the collapse of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic was expected to widen these deficits in 2020.
- GDP per capita varies greatly across SIDS. In 2019, it was $11,561 (in current prices) in the Caribbean, three times more than in the Pacific SIDS and 1.6 times more than in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean SIDS. Half of the top 10 SIDS in terms of total GDP are also Caribbean.
- Despite suffering acutely from the impacts of climate change, SIDS emitted only 0.2% of global CO2 emissions in 2016.
- SIDS score close to the global average in Human Development Index, and 60% of SIDS receive a very high or high score.
- In 2019, the Gender Inequality Index ranked most SIDS better than the world average, and all of them better than LDCs’ average.
- However, the share of women and girls subjected to violence has been high in some SIDS, particularly in the Pacific.
By — Pankaj Pandey.