Cook Islands Ambassador to UNESCO elected as President of the Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) Group

The Cook Islands Ambassador to UNESCO, Nathalie Rossette-Cazel, has been elected unanimously by Smaller Islands Developing States (SIDS) UNESCO members as President of the SIDS group. The SIDS President role requires of the individual sustained and comprehensive advocacy of SIDS priorities and issues across all sectors of UNESCO.

The election took place during the last SIDS plenary session of UNESCO (via zoom platform) on the 23 October 2020. The SIDS Plenary had a high turn-out with high level representation including two Assistant Director Generals (Shamila Nair-Bedouelle for Natural Sciences and Vladimir Rabyanin, Executive Secretary for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission), the head of World Heritage Centre, and representatives of 26 member-states.

UNESCO has been among the pioneers in the United Nations system supporting SIDS in their efforts to achieve sustainable development and carrying their challenges to the forefront of the global agenda.
In 2008, to ensure that UNESCO’s unique multi-disciplinary expertise – in science, culture, climate change, education, biodiversity resource preservation, knowledge management and information for decision-making – are productively used in addressing the multiplicity of challenges facing SIDS, a UNESCO inter-sectoral platform was established.

The SIDS platform mobilizes UNESCO’s house-wide contribution for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) through an integrated approach to sustainable island living and development, emphasizing interregional linkages and cooperation, reflecting the priority status assigned to SIDS in UNESCO’s current strategy.

As a follow-up to the Organization’s commitment to implement the outcomes of the 3rd International Conference on SIDS in Samoa, UNESCO has developed, in consultation with its SIDS Member States, a long-term SIDS Action Plan (2016-2021), the SAMOA pathway, unanimously adopted by its Member States during the Organization’s Executive Board in April 2016.

The Action Plan benefits from an intersectoral engagement across all of UNESCO’s programmes, and its implementation mobilizes networks of sites and a wide range of partners and stakeholders in SIDS and other countries worldwide, including inter-regional, inter-institutional and inter-agency collaboration.

Within UNESCO, the SIDS group have established recognition as ‘big ocean sustainable States’ (BOSS). Priorities for the group at UNESCO include: protecting their terrestrial, aquatic and marine biodiversity and heritage, and securing equitable access to land and ocean resources that are essential for their sustainable development. In terms of natural resources, SIDS face numerous challenges due to their bio-physical settings, which leave them vulnerable not only to extreme climatological and seismic events but also other adverse environmental impacts, including pollution of groundwater and surface water resources, sustainable energy access, saline intrusion, soil and coastal erosion, and biodiversity loss, coral bleaching, among others. Supporting SIDS to overcome these challenges is a priority at UNESCO, being advanced through capacity enhancement in biodiversity, marine, natural and social sciences, engineering education, as well as through research and technology transfer and the application of traditional and non-traditional knowledge, tools and approaches.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Immigration is very proud to have its Ambassador to UNESCO, Ms. Rossette Cazel, assume the Presidency of this auspicious group, and advancing as a priority the national interests of the Cook Islands and the Pacific region, and of SIDS members of UNESCO more broadly, in the work of the Organisation. “The assumption of the SIDS Presidency by Ambassador Rossette Cazel recognizes the capabilities, experience and expertise she brings to the role as well as the Cook Islands value proposition for the work of the UNESCO SIDS group,” said MFAI Secretary Tepaeru Herrmann.

“As a SIDS and a large ocean island state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Cook Islands, through its own development journey is well placed to contribute meaningfully to the global multilateral effort that is UNESCO to build peace and prosperity for all nations through international co-operation in education, science and culture.”

Queries regarding this media release and Cook Islands engagement in UNESCO can be directed to MFAI UN, Treaties and Oceans Director Josh Mitchell at Josh.Mitchell@cookislands.gov.ck

(Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Cook Islands 03rd November 2020)