Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

As the Fourth In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS4) came to a close on Thurs­day, the Al­liance of Small Is­land States (AO­SIS) and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da launched the SIDS Glob­al Da­ta Hub.

It is part of the new Cen­ter of Ex­cel­lence for the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment of SIDS, one of the sub­stan­tive de­vel­op­ments from the SIDS4 10-year sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment ac­tion plan, the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Agen­da for SIDS (ABAS).

Gas­ton Browne, Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, was joined by AO­SIS chair­man, Dr Pa'olelei Luteru, in de­clar­ing the SIDS Glob­al Da­ta Hub open.

Ac­cord­ing to an AO­SIS state­ment on Fri­day, the in­ter-re­gion­al plat­form will help AO­SIS Mem­ber States es­tab­lish or im­prove na­tion­al da­ta cen­ters and cre­ate SDG Da­ta Hubs to en­hance de­ci­sion-mak­ing, build ca­pac­i­ty, track progress, and strength­en the amount and qual­i­ty of pub­lic, pri­vate and in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment fi­nance.

The SIDS Glob­al Da­ta Hub was ini­ti­at­ed on the mar­gins of the 78th Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, with a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing sign­ing be­tween AO­SIS, the Gov­ern­ment of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and PVBLIC Foun­da­tion, an or­gan­i­sa­tion that mo­bilis­es da­ta and tech­nol­o­gy for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

Am­bas­sador Luteru said, “As SIDS con­front the un­prece­dent­ed chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change, eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty, and glob­al health crises, it has be­come abun­dant­ly clear that lever­ag­ing da­ta and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies is not just a choice but a ne­ces­si­ty."

He went fur­ther in adding, "Rec­og­niz­ing the im­por­tance of da­ta and tech­nol­o­gy for SIDS, the Cen­ter of Ex­cel­lence will serve as a fo­cal point for in­no­va­tion, knowl­edge shar­ing and train­ing for all SIDS. It will be a hub for re­search, ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, and col­lab­o­ra­tion to en­hance the so­cio-eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal re­silience of SIDS."