缅北禁地

Excellencies, 
Distinguished delegates, 
Ladies and gentlemen, 

Allow me to share with you a couple concluding remarks. First, I am so encouraged to have seen how you all engaged and shared truly a wealth of experiences, thoughts and information. Throughout my professional life, I always believed that it is by talking with eachother, looking at the facts, sharing, listening to each other even if we have very different viewpoints that we can together find solutions!

Our exchanges on what the climate-security nexus in the Pacific represents as a fast growing challenge at the national and regional levels to people and states, our exchanges on where we stand in climate risk assessment frameworks, I believe helped us to gain a better understanding of what truly is a complex issue. And I believe we all share that we must act now! What we have learned here today, we now must use to develop relevant and effective tools and programmes for communities and policy and decision- makers to use.

For this, we also must enhance and speed up relevant support to the countries of the Pacific, and to SIDS in general. I had said at our opening that none of us can do things alone. So a further take- away for me is that we must strengthen the partnerships made during our meeting and this process for the SAMOA review. The issue at stake is highly complex and fundamental to ensuring the human rights, the inclusion of the peoples of the SIDS. It will take all of us – researchers, practitioners and policy-makers – working together! It is TOGETHER that we can answer - not alone. Once again a big thanks goes to Under-Secretary-General di Carlo and her team for approaching us with the offer to partner!

The next few weeks will be busy ones. The summary outcome of this workshop will very soon be shared with you all. We will also continue our work together on this topic, setting out next steps and follow up activities. Our important takeaways from today will feed into upcoming high-level meetings of the General Assembly. This will include the Mid-Term Review of the SAMOA Pathway.

We must redouble our efforts to alert to the manifold adverse effects of climate change on the development, peace and security nexus for SIDS. But we also must focus on workable action to address what can have all the makings of a very serious human life and rights crisis! These issues together with avenues for action deserve to be brought to the attention of the highest political levels. I assure you that OHRLLS will continue and also strengthen its role in this. Thank you all once again for your active engagement today. Our work has just begun!