Mr. President, Excellencies,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the 39 members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). To the Government and people of Spain, we extend our sincere gratitude for your generous hospitality.
It is fitting that we meet here in Sevilla, a city once known as a gateway to bold journeys into uncharted waters. From this city, Magellan’s fleet set sail to circumnavigate the globe. Today, it is small island developing states, those scattered across every horizon he passed, who are sounding the call for a new global journey. A journey not of conquest, but one for justice, equity, and solidarity.

Mr. President,

Over thirty years ago, the international community recognized what we have always known: that small island developing states are a special case for sustainable development. This is not a favour. It is an undeniable truth. A truth that has echoed from Rio de Janeiro to Barbados; from Barbados to
Mauritius; from Mauritius to Samoa. And now, through the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS, it rings louder than ever. Our vulnerabilities are not theoretical. We are on the frontlines of a climate crisis we did not create. Hurricanes, typhoons, and rising seas batter our homes and economies.

Yet, climate finance, promised and pledged, remains largely unmet. We call on developed countries to honour their commitments under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. Finance for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage must be new, additional, predictable, and accessible, and remain distinct from development finance.

At the same time, ocean finance remains a trickle when it should be a tide. SIDS are stewards of vast marine ecosystems. But stewardship without support is not sustainable. We call on partners to scale up investments in marine protection, fisheries management, and blue economy initiatives.

And still, even as SIDS work to protect our future, the international financial system does not see us, let alone serve us. It is a painful paradox: when small island states demonstrate success, we are punished. Palau, like several of our members, who have graduated or are in the process of graduating to high-income status, now face the loss of critical support: stripped of access to grants, concessional financing, and even development cooperation.

Let us be honest: income per capita tells you nothing about the resilience of our economies, the cost of importing fuel, food, or medicine, or the exposure to a single storm that can erase years of progress overnight. It tells us nothing about how our economies have difficulties reaching economies of scale, or the difficulty if not impossibility of accessing public capital markets. It tells us nothing about the whipsaw of our development from external shocks.

This is the failure of a system that prioritizes income over vulnerability and formulas over fairness.
That is why AOSIS calls for the full and immediate integration of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) into the policies and frameworks of international financial institutions and international organizations.

Mr. President,
The MVI is not about favouring SIDS. It is about getting the rules right so that the system values context, complexity, and risk. Even when we follow the rules, many of our members face blacklisting or greylisting under compliance regimes; despite meeting global standards. Banks are withdrawing. Correspondent relationships are vanishing. Legitimate financial flows are delayed or denied.

At the same time, the imposition of unilateral coercive measures, particularly against one of our members, only serve to undermine the principles of the United Nations Charter, restrict trade and investment, and further entrench the vulnerabilities that SIDS are striving to overcome.
This is not financial integrity. It is financial exclusion. And it must end.

In this same spirit, the imposition of unilateral coercive measures, particularly against one of our members, must also end. These measures only undermine the principles of the United Nations Charter, restrict trade and investment and constitutes a grave impediment to sustainable development, and we reiterate our call for their immediate removal.

Mr. President,
Too often, our voices are sidelined, our needs treated as peripheral. Institutions like the IMF and World Bank were built without us at the table. That must change. SIDS demand a seat; not as observers, but as equal partners and architects of a financial system that governs all our futures. The underrepresentation of SIDS on the executive boards of financial institutions weakens the legitimacy and effectiveness of those very institutions. Decisions made without us are often decisions made against us. Nowhere is this injustice more acute than in the realm of debt.

Many of our members are trapped in cycles of borrowing, driven by the rising costs of recovery, adaptation, and rebuilding from climate disasters we did not cause. We are drowning, not just beneath rising seas, but beneath rising debt. We need a new international debt architecture that is development-oriented, structured, predictable, and grounded in equity. The current patchwork of voluntary and creditor-led mechanisms is not fit for purpose.

AOSIS calls on the G20 to reform the Common Framework to include all SIDS. We also call for broad support for the SIDS Debt Sustainability Support Service, and welcome the commitment in this conference outcome to initiate an intergovernmental process on debt. This process must be ambitious. It must lead to a system that places people at the center, with a sovereign debt instrument that is fair, inclusive, and responsive to the unique challenges of small island economies.

Mr. President,
In closing, AOSIS welcomes the Compromiso de Sevilla as a shared commitment to close the gap between promise and progress. But let us be clear: adoption is not the end—implementation will be the true measure of our resolve.

Let Seville be remembered once more as a point of departure: this time not in search of new worlds, but to build a better one.
A world that embodies justice, equity and solidarity.
A world where we turn promises into progress.

I thank you.