Statement delivered by
HE Dr Ali Naseer Mohamed, Permanent Representative
at the High Level Meeting on Development Cooperation with Middle-Income Countries
4 December 2018
Thank you, Madam President,
I wish to thank you, for convening this important meeting.
The ‘Middle-Income Countries’ category comprises of countries with some of the largest economies in the world and some of the smallest and most vulnerable, such as the Maldives. The vulnerabilities of the Maldives are inherent, and are manifested in their economic, environmental, and structural dimensions.
The Maldives graduated from the Least Developed Countries category in 2011. When the General Assembly took the decision to graduate the Maldives, we did not meet the threshold for the Economic Vulnerability Index, one of the criteria for graduation. Seven years since then, the evi for the Maldives has, in fact, increased.
The strategy that the new Government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who assumed office just a couple of weeks ago, is to build our national resilience to mitigate against the vulnerabilities. This is where the Maldives seeks international support. The international community could support us by creating more helpful opportunities, or at least, not to narrow the space, for us to build our resilience.
The Maldives believes that it can build its national resilience by creating a conducive environment for attracting investors—an environment that is transparent, predictable, and one that is governed by the rule of law. Our international partners can help us by extending technical assistance to strengthen our national capacity to create an investor-friendly atmosphere.
Establishing a conducive environment alone is not sufficient to get more investments. The sids, especially, the small economy- sids, such as the Maldives, face both structural and non-structural barriers as banking and financial regulations that place restrictions in investment originating countries. Removal of such barriers will help potential investors to view the sids in a more supportive light.
Madam President,
The Addis Ababa Action Agenda provides a global framework for financing the realisation of the sdgs. Yet, the “actions” are missing in the implementation of the “Action Agenda”. For the sids, the most viable approach for the realisation of the sdgs is building institutional and physical infrastructure to stimulate growth in economic and social sectors. sids, however, cannot build such infrastructure without access to affordable financing. The appeal from my Government to our development partners, therefore, is to expand space for sids, such as the Maldives, to access concessional financing for infrastructure projects. Such projects will help our countries, to adapt to climate change, to reduce risks to disasters, and most importantly, to help us to cope with our vulnerabilities. It will help our people to realise the benefits of graduating from the ldc category.
I thank you, Madam President.
