Keeping Afloat: A Strategy for Small Island Nations

Abstract

Looking for some adventure? Then how about a trip to Fiji, the Caribbean, or the Seychelles? With their palm trees, lazy beaches, and clear turquoise waters, few places have more appeal than the world’s island nations. Roughly 40 such countries, some sovereign and others not, lie scattered across the planet, ranging in size from Papua New Guinea, with a land area of 452,860 square kilometers and more than 5 million citizens, to Tokelau, a tiny, self-administering territory of New Zealand with a land mass measuring just 10 square kilometers and a population of 1,400. Perhaps surprisingly, there is no clear official definition for what constitutes an island nation. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), an ad hoc lobbying and negotiation organization that coordinates the most prominent grouping, refers to its 45 members as “small island developing states,” or SIDS. The criteria that define SIDS are somewhat ambiguous, however. AOSIS members include Belize, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, and Suriname, which are all coastal—although not technically island—nations. The upper population limit for SIDS, which is 10 million, also appears flexible: AOSIS counts Cuba as a member, despite the country’s population of 11.3 million. AOSIS has even received an application from Madagascar, despite that country’s population of 18 million. Island nations may be beautiful, but their isolation makes them vulnerable to outside forces that increasingly threaten their survival. Rising sea levels linked to global warming could submerge some altogether. Tuvalu, a West Pacific nation whose peak height rises just 5 meters over sea level, could be uninhabitable within 50 years, some experts say. A similar fate could also doom the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, and Tokelau. Meanwhile, for reasons not entirely understood, hurricane activity in the tropics appears to be increasing. Hurricane Ivan—the sixth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record—blasted the Caribbean with 160-mile-per-hour winds in 2004, devastating most of Grenada’s housing and virtually destroying its economy within just a few hours. The 2005 Caribbean hurricane season made headlines early on with Dennis in July. This earliest powerful hurricane ever recorded in the region caused an estimated US$5–9 billion in damage. Most island nations struggle daily with depleted fish stocks, inadequate waste management, ship pollution, degraded reefs, dwindling freshwater supplies, and poverty. In general, the farther an island nation is from global markets, the poorer it is. Distance makes everything more expensive; oil prices in particular tend to be extremely high owing to transportation costs. The more remote islands also tend to lack communications infrastructure, access to information technology, and adequate numbers of trained professionals, including engineers, doctors, and teachers. These technical limitations slow economic development and exacerbate environmental problems caused by poor management of island resources. Island nations are also uniquely threatened by price shocks from economic globalization. Most island nations depend heavily on tourism, foreign aid, and a limited range of exports like sugar and bananas. Declines in any of these sectors can decimate revenue streams, exacerbating the poverty that already plagues these countries. In St. Lucia, export revenue from bananas plunged from US$46 million in 1996 to US$22 million in 2002, largely because cheaper bananas from Central America flooded world markets during that same period. According to Kishan Kumarsingh, technical coordinator at the Environmental Management Authority in Trinidad and Tobago, climate change can also alter growing conditions, affecting agricultural productivity. Price shocks emanate in part from the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) trade liberalization policies, which are dismantling arrangements that traditionally have guaranteed markets for island exports. A preferential trade link between the European Union and African, Caribbean, and Pacific Island exporters known as the EU–ACP Agreement is being phased out by the WTO after 30 years in existence as part of a deliberate effort coordinated by the organization to reduce protectionism and open economies to more globalized trade. Its elimination already hurts Caribbean banana exports, as indicated by St. Lucia’s experience. Sugar exports from Pacific countries could suffer similar fates, says Francois Coutu, a spokesperson in the United Nations (UN) Department of Public Information. With environmental and economic problems mounting, island nations are turning increasingly to donor countries for aid. But these sources, too, are dwindling: donor nations’ development aid to island nations decreased from a high of US$2.3 billion in 1995 to US$1.7 billion in 2005, according to the UN Small Island Development Unit.