Seychells established diplomatic relations with the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) of the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in two signings with Ambassador Ronald Jumeau in New York yesterday.

The first signing with the Solomon Islands took place early morning with the Solomon Islands Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Collin Beck, which was immediately followed by the signing with Ambassador Afelee Pita of Tuvalu.

Both countries, along with Seychelles, are members of the New York-based Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

In discussions following the signings, the three Ambassadors pointed out that small island nations have to stick together even more given the current state of global politics where the world's largest economies are increasingly banding together and small countries are always at risk of being marginalised. 

“Small island developing states (SIDS) in particular have to pool their limited resources and combine efforts in defending and promoting their interests in the crucial climate change negotiations, which are getting tougher by the day, the process of the Mauritius Strategy for the Further Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (known as the Mauritius Strategy of Implementation [MSI]), and in their representation within the United Nations system,” said Amb. Jumeau.

The Solomon Islands have a mainly Melanesian population of more than half a million spread over an archipelago in the Southwest Pacific of nearly 1,000 islands.  

Tuvalu, with just 11,000, mainly Polynesian, people who are based on three coral islands and six atolls in the Western Pacific, and they are the second smallest country in the world in terms of population. With an average height of just one metre (3.3 feet) above sea level, it is among the countries most in danger of being entirely submerged by sea level rise.