Next, we spoke to Ambassador Walton Webson, who's the permanent representative of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN and a key figure in the ABBAS process, uh, about how he views the challenge, particularly the financial challenge facing SIDS.

Many of the SIDS w- would prefer, even in, in, in its relationship with some of the financing from, um, some of the bigger development and especially new development partners, getting grant and concessional funding over other types of funding from the international community because our vulnerability is not a temporary nature.

It is permanent.

We are permanently vulnerable based on our geographical positions, and that's something that we have to address, and the financial institutions and partners have to remember and work with.

This evidently speaks to something much more long-term and strategic than many current forms of support, as Ambassador Webson emphasized.

I think development partners, for me, the two important ways.

One is listen to SIDS and work with SIDS based on the voices that are coming directly from us.

And two is for us to begin to move away from just projects to institutional development, and that what we are, what we should be focusing on is systemic change rather than projectizing the change as a response to crisis.