Some small states enjoy relatively high GDP per capita –giving the impression of economic strength – when in reality these economies are fragile and disproportionately affected by adverse economic shocks, natural disasters and extreme weather events. The Commonwealth resilience framework has been developed to identify both the national policies required to build resilience and the areas in which regional and international development partners can provide support. This study refines and expands the framework to cover areas such as governance, environmental management and social development. It proposes policy measures for building resilience and ways in which the resilience framework for small states can be embedded in national planning to help stakeholders to agree priority areas for policy intervention.

Small developing states tend to be inherently prone to exogenous shocks over which they can exercise very little control. In the main, such proneness emanates from the small states; structural trade openness and their very high dependence on a narrow range of exports. There are a number of small developing states that, in spite of their inherent economic vulnerability, manage to generate a relatively high GDP per capita when compared with other developing countries. This can be ascribed to economic resilience building associated with policy-induced measures that enable a country to recover from or adjust to the negative impacts of adverse exogenous shocks and to benefit from positive shocks. The main argument put forward in this book is that economic resilience can be built through appropriate policy interventions in four principal areas, namely macroeconomic stability, microeconomic market efficiency, good governance and social development. Published by the Islands and Small States Institute, Malta and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

This book provides a tool for assessing both how prone a country is to external economic shocks - its vulnerability - as well as its ability bounce back from those shocks - its resilience. For economic planners, as well as students of the economies of small states.

Small developing states are disproportionately vulnerable to natural disasters. On average, the annual cost of disasters for small states is nearly 2 percent of GDP—more than four times that for larger countries. This reflects a higher frequency of disasters, adjusted for land area, as well as greater vulnerability to severe disasters. About 9 percent of disasters in small states involve damage of more than 30 percent of GDP, compared to less than 1 percent for larger states. Greater exposure to disasters has important macroeconomic effects on small states, resulting in lower investment, lower GDP per capita, higher poverty, and a more volatile revenue base.

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change; proposes and, where possible, evaluates adaptation activities; identifies factors capable of enhancing or inhibiting SIDS people’s long-term ability to deal with climate change; and critiques the discourses, vocabularies, and constructions around SIDS dealing with climate change. The contributions, written by well-established scholars, as well as emerging authors and practitioners, in the field, include conceptual papers, coherent methodological approaches, and case studies from the communities based in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. In their introduction, the editors contextualise the book within the current literature. They emphasise the importance of stronger links between climate change science and policy in SIDS, both to increase effectiveness of policy and also boost scholarly enquiry in the context of whose communities are often excluded by mainstream research. This book is timely and appropriate, given the recent commission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a Special Report that aims at addressing vulnerabilities, “especially in islands and coastal areas, as well as the adaptation and policy development opportunities” following the Paris Agreement. Coupled with this, there is also the need to support the policy community with further scientific evidence on climate change–related issues in SIDS, accompanying the first years of implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This is an in-depth analysis of the various methods used by small states to overcome their vulnerabilities in the international arena. With its balanced approach and variety of contributions, this book is of interest to researchers and academics who focus on the developing world or multilateral diplomacy.