There is a need for proper monitoring and accountability for all commitments and actions agreed to by the international community for the benefit of all Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

In Pattaya, Thailand last week, Fijian government representative to the Asia Pacific Ministerial Roundtable on Sustainable Development, Setaita Tupua-Kalou said this will guarantee their effective and time bound implementations for all the people of SIDS.

Tupua-Kalou said that monitoring would ensure a transformative strategy for a people centred sustainable development of SIDS to be operationalised.

She emphasised the importance of an inclusive and participatory process at all levels of this dialogue, highlighting the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) as setting the pace of such a transformative approach in the region.

Tupua- Kalou also spoke at this inaugural forum facilitated by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on behalf on the Pacific SIDS sub- region in the ESCAP region.

The objective of the forum was to provide regional inputs into the integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development namely economic, social and environmental within and among all UN systems, including national, sub-regional and regional processes feeding into this global development agenda beyond 2015.

Fiji participated as a panellist in the Ministerial Roundtable on the Way Forward with the topic of ‘Shaping an Effective and Dynamic Regional Process for Sustainable Development’.

The outcomes of the Forum will be presented to the UN High Level Political Forum at the United Nations in New York in July this year.