ACP Council of Ministers |01 December 2015

Seychelles reiterates call for a vulnerability index

Seychelles has reiterated its call for a vulnerability index for small island developing states (Sids).

This latest call was made by the secretary of state for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Barry Faure, at the 102nd session of the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States) Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels.

It will be recalled that President James Michel made this call at the Third UN International Sids Conference in Samoa last year. It is thus a key foreign policy agenda of the government of Seychelles.

Speaking at the ACP Ministerial Development Finance Meeting, Ambassador Faure, representing Foreign Affairs Minister Joël Morgan, said: “The World Bank has recently categorised Seychelles as a high income country. Despite our criticism of the indiscriminate use of the GDP per capita criteria to measure development, this recognises the commendable transformation of the country under the leadership of President James Michel. The flip side of the coin, however, is that this high income status further hurts our access to development cooperation financing, which is already limited for middle income countries. We will not be eligible for grants and favourable concessionary loans to support our sustainable development programmes and inclusive growth. Therefore, while we reflect on the issues of Post-2020 Cooperation Financing and the implementation of the SDGs (sustainable development goals), Seychelles would like to continue its advocacy work for the creation of a specific instrument in the next multi-annual financial framework to deal with small vulnerable economies (SVEs). The single and indiscriminate use of GDP per capita when it comes to development assistance works against Sids and SVEs. This practice has to be abandoned.”

The Seychelles delegate also pointed out that while we understand and would support the principle of “differentiation” in the EU Agenda for Change, it has to recognise and accommodate the specificities and peculiarities of Sids and SVEs in order to preserve the gains achieved under past progressive EU development policies. Seychelles called for the interest of Sids and SVEs to be seriously considered in Post-2020 Joint ACP-EU Partnership.

The ACP Council endorsed the Seychelles position and the European Commission showed willingness to work with the ACP secretariat to accommodate the concerns of ACP Sids.