Alliance of Small Island States

Organization

AOSIS is recognized as the negotiating voice for SIDS through the United Nations (UN) system. Its highest decision making body is the biannual meeting of the Heads of State and Government of Member States, which sets policy direction and adopts regular Declarations and Communiques. The Plenary of Permanent Representatives to the United Nations takes decisions, which are implemented through a Secretariat hosted at the Permanent Mission of the Chair.

Mission

AOSIS' core focus areas are climate change, sustainable development and ocean conservation.

SIDS are among the nations least responsible for climate change, having contributed less than 1% to the world's greenhouse gas emissions. They are particularly vulnerable to its effects, with some islands at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to sea level rise. AOSIS has consistently raised this threat of uninhabitability created by climate change in climate negotiations.

SIDS, of which AOSIS is predominantly comprised, account for less than 1% of the global GDP, territory, and population, meaning that individually SIDS hold little political weight in international climate negotiations. The aim of AOSIS is to amplify the voices of its members by joining together states which face similar issues. This is to increase their ability to influence climate negotiations and raise awareness for its concerns.

Actions

AOSIS has been very active from its inception. It has played a leading role in the global arena in raising awareness on climate change and advocating for action to address climate change. The creation of the alliance marked the beginning of the growth in influence of SIDS in climate politics. Despite their size and their relatively small economic and political weight, AOSIS member states have pulled above their weight in climate change negotiations.

AOSIS played an important role in establishing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and was an important actor in the negotiations of the Framework in 1992. Its advocacy was instrumental to the inclusion of references to the greater vulnerability and special needs of SIDS in Article 4.8 of the UNFCCC. However, AOSIS was unsuccessful in its attempts to persuade nations to include commitments to specified greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in the Framework.

AOSIS continued to advocate for the special needs of SIDS during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the 'special case' of SIDS was recognised in Agenda 21, the political action plan which resulted from the Summit. AOSIS' proposal to create an 'international insurance fund', funded by developed countries to compensate SIDS for damage caused by climate change, was turned down. In Rio, AOSIS broadened its mandate beyond climate change to also include the sustainable development of SIDS. AOSIS negotiated for the inclusion of a small program area on the sustainable development of small islands in Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was not legally binding, and some academics contend that the program was too vague to promote meaningful action.

AOSIS did manage to secure the inclusion in Agenda 21 of a call for a global conference on this issue, which led to the first Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island States, held in Barbados in 1994. AOSIS played a prominent role at the Conference. It was the first UN conference entirely devoted to SIDS. The Conference resulted in the translation of Agenda 21 into a more comprehensive programme, the Barbados Programme of Action on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States. The five year review of the Barbados Conference, conducted at a special session of the UN General Assembly in 1999, found that the SIDS efforts to make progress towards sustainable development had been limited, while the ten year review of the Barbados Conference, which took the form of an international meeting in Mauritius in 2005, found that its implementation was largely unsuccessful.

AOSIS membership

AOSIS has a membership of 39 global states, of which 37 are members of the UN while 2 (Cook Islands and Niue) participate within UN agencies. The alliance represents 28% of the developing countries, and 20% of the UN's total membership.

AOSIS has a heterogeneous membership with member states spread across many different global regions. While AOSIS' focus is on SIDS, its membership also includes several low-lying coastal countries, for example Belize and Guyana, and larger islands, for example Papua New Guinea. Member nations also vary economically, with AOSIS including both wealthy nations, such as Singapore, as well as least developed countries (LDCs), such as Haiti. Some scholars contend that AOSIS' heterogeneity has weakened its effectiveness, particularly in regard to its lobbying for sustainable development.

The common factor which unites AOSIS members is their particular vulnerability to climate change.

Member states

The member states are:

Chairmanship

There have been 15 chairs of AOSIS since its establishment, with the Permanent Representative of Palau, Ambassador Ilana V. Seid, as the current chair.

Honours

In 2010, AOSIS was awarded the first Frederick R. Anderson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Addressing Climate Change by the Center for International Environmental Law.

In 2022, the Italy-AOSIS Fellowship Programme, an AOSIS-led initiative to train early career diplomats from AOSIS countries received the inaugural UN SIDS Partnership Award in the Social Category.