2010 Small States Forum

2010 SMALL STATES FORUM 2015 AND BEYOND: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES FOR SMALL STATES Saturday, October 9, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (with breakfast and registration beginning at 8:30 a.m.) in the conference room J B1-080.       New: Background Documents for the 2010 Small States Forum                  2010 Small States Forum Photos

Each year at the Annual Meetings, the 48 small states* (almost all with populations below 1.5 million) that are members of the World Bank gather at the Small States Forum (SSF) to discuss their most pressing challenges and to hold themselves and their partners accountable for progress on these issues.  This year, the SSF will focus on development prospects in the context of the current economic environment and emerging global issues, such as climate change and food and energy security, providing an opportunity for an engaged discussion on policy issues, actions and priorities, just after the MDG Summit in New York and ahead of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Mexico, the G20 Summit in Korea, and the IDA16 Replenishment.

The Hon. Winston Dookeran, Minister of Finance, Trinidad and Tobago will chair the Forum.  Other speakers include Mr. Robert Zoellick, President, World Bank Group; Hon.  Danny Faure, Vice President and Minister of Finance, Seychelles; Nazim Burke, Minister of Finance, Grenada; Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response; Joachim von Amsberg, Vice President and Head of Operations Policy and Country Services, World Bank; Inger Andersen Vice President and Head, Sustainable Development Network, World Bank.

Background:* Although small states are diverse—ranging from islands to land-locked countries; with per capita incomes ranging widely; and from stable, well-managed countries to fragile states—they broadly share common challenges associated with small populations/economies: diseconomies of scale, capacity and institutional constraints, open economies that are unable easily to diversify, remoteness and high transport costs, and susceptibility to natural disasters (which are national, not localized, crises in states with small land-masses).  The World Bank has 48 small state members: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Cape Verde, Comoros, Djibouti, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Gabon, The Gambia, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Jamaica, Kiribati, Lesotho, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Micronesia (Fed. States), Montenegro, Namibia, Palau, Samoa, Sao Tome & Principe, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, Swaziland, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, and Vanuatu have access to IBRD and/or IDA financing.  (All but five of these countries—Botswana, The Gambia, Jamaica, Lesotho, and Namibia—have populations below 1.5 million.)  In addition, World Bank small state members include the high-income countries of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Malta, Qatar, and San Marino.  All 48 small states are invited to the World Bank’s Small States Forum.