Madame President,
The Members of the Alliance of Small Island States wish to join the Group of 77 and China
and others in expressing our utmost appreciation to you, Madame President, for your able
stewardship of this, our fourth session.
It is clear that we needed to come together, even with the given restrictions, to focus again on
the critical objectives of this IGC process and establish a robust and enduring agreement for
the BBNJ. For this, we are grateful to you Madame President and the Secretariat, for your
efforts in making arrangements to allow us to proceed in person and also to welcome civil
society in the second week.
This session has been a turning point for the inter-governmental conference. We have actively
engaged with each other on various textual proposals and pivot to the final stages of this
process.
AOSIS believes that there is considerable work to be done inter-sessionally, and we look
forward to engaging with other delegations as we continue to build bridges.
To help us on the way, AOSIS supports the call for the early release of a revised text that best
captures progress from this session and points us to possible landing zones. No doubt, the level
of difficulty across issues is not equal, but all the same, every effort should be expended to
make progress on all of the elements of the package we agreed upon.
AOSIS accepts that the onus is upon all of us to look for solutions together for even the most
seemingly intractable issues. I can assure you Madame President that our Members are
committed to undertaking the heavy lifting so that we can adopt a BBNJ Agreement .
For our members, this endeavour will require that we draw on all our available expertise to
increase our effective participation in this very important process.
AOSIS cannot overemphasize how essential that participation is and how critical the support
through the Voluntary Trust Fund has been and continues to be in this regard. We hope that
our appeals for further contributions to the Trust Fund will be positively received.
At the same time, we also hope that upcoming meeting will better accommodate the
participation and contribution of observers and civil society, which are invaluable to the
process.
Madame President,
AOSIS is grateful to all delegations for their constructive engagement and for the solidarity
demonstrated throughout the IGC for the special case of small island developing states. We
look forward to our next earliest engagement so that together we can finalize a robust and
enduring agreement for the BBNJ. Thank you.