Maldives actively engages during the UNGA Sixty-Ninth Session

Tuesday, 30 December 2014 17:37

As the Sixty-ninth regular session of the United Nations General Assembly concluded its work today, the Maldives has played an active role throughout the Session.

During the General Assembly Regular Session which lasted from 16 September to 29 December 2014, the Maldives delivered 45 statements and interventions, under different agenda items focussed among others on sustainable development, social issues, human rights, and consideration of situations in the Middle East particularly in Palestine and Syria. Among statements Maldives delivered during the Session include, the promotion and protection of children’s rights, advancement of women, eradication of poverty, disarmament and measures to eliminate international terrorism. Maldives also delivered few statements on the debate on the Middles East and the issue of Palestine, condemning the continued violations of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people by Israel and urging that the State of Palestine must be granted full independence with pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.  Furthermore, during the debate on the United Nations Security Council reform, the Maldives stressed on the significance of a seat to be allocated to the Small Island developing states (SIDS) identifying the unique vulnerabilities of SIDS to issues of climate change which the Maldives has argued as fundamentally related to international security and stability.

Maldives: “We Do Not Want to Perish in Paris”

Thursday, 11 December 2014 21:04

Lima, 11^th December 2014: Maldives has urged for a decisive outcome in the UN climate negotiations taking place in Lima. Speaking at the plenary meeting of the 20^th Conference of the Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Ambassador Ahmed Sareer, Permanent Representative of Maldives to the United Nations emphasised on the need for a negotiated text in Lima in order to arrive at a strong, legally binding climate agreement in Paris in 2015.  He said that “We do not want to be in Paris to get perished.”

He said that the Maldives as a small, low-lying island state, is among the most vulnerable and least defensible countries to the projected impacts of climate change. These countries have been subjected to to losses and damages that cannot be mitigated nor adapted to, and therefore, stressed on the establishment of a credible mechanism to address loss and damage, while at the same time emphaising equally on mitigation and adaptation.

In his statement, Ambassador Sareer gave information on the on-going water crisis in Male’ city, following a fire that cut-off the water supply last week.  He said that the water situation “is a stark example of the vulnerability of small island developing states like the Maldives that has no natural fresh water sources”.

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Maldives calls for a human rights-based approach to development

Monday, 17 November 2014 19:07

Today at the General Assembly plenary, the Maldives drew attention to the need for a human rights-based approach to development. As the Human Rights Council presented its report to the General Assembly, H.E. Mr. Ahmed Sareer, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, took the opportunity to emphasise the importance of integrating human rights as we move towards two landmark events in 2015: the post-2015 development agenda and the international climate negotiations in Paris.

Statement by Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon on International Momentum Building for Climate Action at G20

Sunday, 16 November 2014 00:00

Amidst a wave of positive announcements about plans for substantial greenhouse gas reductions and contributions to the Green Climate Fund leading up to the G20 in Australia, the Foreign Minister of the Maldives, the Hon. Dunya Maumoon, issued the following statement:

“We stand at a watershed moment in the effort to address climate change. After decades of false starts and broken promises, the world is finally starting to see the central components of meaningful agreement come together in time for the U.N. climate negotiations in Lima at the end of the month, which is meant to lay the ground work for a legally binding agreement, applicable to all parties, next year in Paris.

“The announcement that the world’s two biggest emitters, the U.S. and China, are serious about putting the world on a sustainable energy pathway, will help revive confidence in the international community’s ability to address this crisis.

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Commonwealth SG welcomes election of Maldives and Seychelles as next Chairs of AOSIS

Friday, 14 November 2014 00:00

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has welcomed the election of Maldives and Seychelles as the next two successive Chairs of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a negotiation coalition of small island and coastal states and observers from across Africa, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, Pacific, and the South China Sea.

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