People talking

Small Islands’Voice is being launched from three small islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific.

Small Islands Voice is all about:

• providing people from small islands the opportunity to voice their opinions on environment–development issues
  
  
• making sure that these opinions are included in the 10-year review of the ‘Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States’,adopted in
  Barbados in 1994
  
  
• encouraging people to get involved in environment–development issues up to and beyond 2004

Training and capacity building

• Ineach island the key environment–develop-
  ment issues important to islanders will be determined through various activities
   involving all major groups (women, men, young people, local leaders, private sector, governmental and non-governmental agencies) and supported by radio, television and print media
  
  
• The debate on local issues will then be
   widened to national,regional and ultimately inter-regional levels,through Internet-based discussions
  
  
• Ayoung islanders Internet-based discussion on environment– development issues will be started

• Keyissues of the environment–development debate will be identified through continual feedback from and interaction between the on-the-ground and Internet levels
  
  
• Islanders’views and opinions will contribute to the review of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island DevelopingStates (2004)
  
  
• Pre- and post-project attitude
  surveys will be conducted to
  evaluate the activities

Small islands are,by their very nature,limited in
size and relatively isolated.They are also partic-
ularly vulnerable to natural disasters and global
economic events,making the problems they
confront especially challenging


Despite their isolation and vulnerability,small
islands can contribute to and benefit from the
‘information age’,which may provide a means
to battle environmental degradation and grow-
ing poverty at home,and serve as an example
to the rest of the world.

‘The world’s small island developing
states are front-line zones where, in
concentrated form, many of the main
problems of environment and
development are unfolding’..

(United Nations Secretary-General,Mr Kofi Annan,
New York,September 1999)