Tuvalu's Minister of Foreign Affairs has called for the United Nations to grant special treatment to small island developing states or SIDS.
Apisai Ielemia told delegates of the UN General Assembly's 67th General Debate in New York that in the last two decades the pleas island states have made for special treatment have gone unanswered.
He says although he appreciates the work of various UN entities in small island developing states, most of it has been stating and reiterating their challenges and problems.
"We believe that time has come for us to spell it out. The third decade of UN work on SIDS should not be another round of lip service. This implies that a number of needed special international measures for SIDS be identified, and naturally also, that some order be put in the definition of SIDS, in a necessary condition for making SIDS a genuine, internationally accepted special category of countries."
Tuvalu's Minister of Foreign Affairs Apisai Ielemia.