SIDS Antigua Meeting August 2022 Remarks by Roy Trivedy

Dear Excellencies, Colleagues and Friends,

Greetings from Timor-Leste!

I am very pleased to be able to join you in this Cross Regional Exchange on Financing for Development in the Small Island Development States (SIDS).

I would like to thank the Government of Antigua and Barbuda for hosting this important meeting in its capacity as Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and also to thank all of the organisers of this important event.

I am sorry that neither the Government of Timor-Leste nor I, as UN Resident Coordinator in Timor-Leste, are able to join you in person but I am very pleased to be able to contribute in a small way to the deliberations by recording this short message.

I am pleased that several of my UN Resident Coordinator friends including Simona (Samoa), Didier (Barbados), Sanaka (Fiji), Catherine (Maldives) and Ana Patricia (Cabo Verde) re with you together with Helena Fraser (Director of Policy and Programming UN DCO).

In Timor-Leste the UN has been working closely with the Government and other partners on the diversification of the economy for several years now. Timor-Leste is a young nation classified as a ‘Low Income Country’. This year the country celebrates its 20th Anniversary since regaining its independence. More than 60 per cent of the country’s population is under the age of 24. The country has limited oil and gas reserves and an established Petroleum Fund with roughly $19bn currently in the fund which is vital element for funding annual budgets. But revenues from the Petroleum Fund are gradually diminishing and expected to be exhausted by mid 2030s. So, identifying practical options for financing the country’s continued development are vital. 

In 2020, together with the Minister for Legislative Reforms, the UN worked with the International Growth Centre based at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford to produce a study on the “Drivers of Growth and Sectoral Transformation”. This focused on how Timor-Leste can develop its work in Agriculture, Fisheries, Tourism and light industries as pivotal sectors for sustainable growth over the next decade.    

In 2021-22 we have followed that by working with the Ministry of Finance to develop an Integrated National Financing Framework that focuses on new and innovative ways of generating public, private and blended finance options for the country. The INFF work specifically focuses on three key areas:

1. Financing for health through increasing tax revenues from tobacco and alcohol products. This work has been led by WHO and it has already started to be implemented by the Government;
2. Development of a Diaspora Policy and Action Plan that seeks to utilize diaspora contributions to national development priorities. This work is being led by the IOM;
3. Development of a Blue Economy Roadmap that can sustainably utilize the country’s seas and eco-systems as a way of creating new livelihood opportunities for the population and reducing the country’s dependence on oil and gas revenues while also contributing to Timor-Leste’s Climate change objectives. This work is being led by the UNDP.

I am pleased to share an article summarizing this work that we prepared earlier this year prior to the UN Oceans Summit. All the ideas mentioned above have been documented and are freely available on the UN Timor-Leste website.  We hope that this will help contribute to the sharing of ideas. I look forward to hearing about your deliberations. With best wishes from Timor-Leste.