With up to 40% of our GDP dependent on Tourism, our full recovery will be measured, not in months, but in years – PM

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says in the coming months, COVID-19 will trigger financial decisions that have the potential to reshape the world as we know it.

While speaking to leaders from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in a zoom meeting, Bainimarama says the developing world deserves a seat at that table – and they demand to be consulted about considerations that will determine our fate.

[Photo: Office of the Prime Minister]

The Prime Minister says this pandemic – like climate change – affects all of us adding like the rising seas, stronger storms and changing weather patterns, this new crisis, and the looming financial burden of over-coming it, makes the division between the developed and developing worlds feel starker than ever.

He further says in Fiji, Tropical Cyclone Harold arrived on the heels of the first COVID-19 case.

Bainimarama adds Fiji climate-proofed its public health response to prevent the storm’s chaos from worsening the spread of the virus – and their containment strategy has since proved decisive.

He says but 43 days removed from Fiji’s last confirmed case, it is clear the pandemic’s economic fallout is far more destructive than any storm, and far beyond our own capabilities to constrain.

[Photo: Office of the Prime Minister]

Bainimarama says with up to 40 per cent of our GDP dependent on tourism, our full recovery will be measured, not in months, but in years.

He further adds global financing frameworks were already ill-suited to confront the climate emergency, and COVID-19 has further exposed their inability to rapidly and sustainably respond to the complex realities across our regions.

The Prime Minister says last week, at a special summit convened by the Prime Ministers of Canada and Jamaica, he called for radical financing solutions to respond to the radical economic crisis at our doorsteps, specifically, to ensure the full implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

He says it is estimated that Pacific Small Island Developing States require additional economic stimulus packages of at least 15 percent of the value of their GDP’s to maintain their social and economic orders.

[Photo: Office of the Prime Minister]

Bainimarama further says amidst this pandemic, African, Caribbean, and Pacific Island States must be empowered to continue investing in all of their Sustainable Development Goals – and the highly -developed nations of the world must not lose sight of the vision that first inspired the 2030 Agenda.

He adds with their traditional revenue sources gutted, the support of their development partners, including within the European Union, and multilateral development banks is critical.

Bainimarama says they must stand in solidarity with one another, and the EU must not settle for unilateral outcomes that more closely resemble a return to colonial inequities than the inclusive future they sought to achieve. Consult, don’t prescribe.