Are Small Islands Developing States more vulnerable than others? Evidence from the Net Vulnerability-Resilience Index

Valérie Angeon, University of the French West IndiesSamuel Bates, University Paris Dauphine

Port of Spain, Trinidad, 5-7 May, 2015

Aims and scope• A Growing interest for SD

▫ 1972: Meadows Report, The limits to growth ▫ 1992: Rio Earth Summit▫ 1997: Kyoto Protocol▫ 2000: Millennium development goals▫ 2002: Johannesburg Earth Summit▫ 2012: Rio+20 Earth Summit▫ 2015: Post-2015 Development Agenda

• An implicit intuition that SD can diminish vulnerability and augment resilience

▫ Intuition: There is no empirical demonstration of the link between SD and VR

▫ Injunction: Countries much reach inclusive growth (World Bank, 2008)

▫ Questions: How to be sure that these objectives are reached? How to measure VR with a SD approach? => We provide the NVRI

Content

1. SD: the turn of the 90's

2. SD and VR indices: the missing link

3. Assessing VR trough a SD approach: a worldwide application of the NVRI

1. SD: The turn of the 90's

•90’s: Rio Earth Summit, 1992▫Institutionalization of SD

•90’s: Recognition of SIDS vulnerability▫Rio Summit, 1992 and its derived outputs

Measuring vulnerability and promoting resilience through SD

1992

•Rio

2002

•Johannesburg

2012

•Rio+20

1994

•Barbados Programme of Action

2005

•Mauritius Strategy

2014

•SAMOA

•UN International year of SIDS

Milestones

Earth Summits

International conferences on SIDS

Rio, 1992

Rio+20, 2012

Johannesburg, 2002

“Small island developing States, and islands supporting small communities are a special case both for environment and development. They are ecologically fragile and vulnerable. Their small size, limited resources, geographic dispersion and isolation from markets, place them at a disadvantage economically and prevent economies of scale”. Agenda 21, Chap. 17, section G, § 124.

“Small island developing States are a special case both for environment and development. Although they continue to take the lead in the path towards sustainable development in their countries, they are increasingly constrained by the interplay of adverse factors clearly underlined in Agenda 21, the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and the decisions adopted at the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly”. Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Chap. 7, § 58.

“We call for continued and enhanced efforts to assist small island developing States in implementing the Barbados Programme of Action and the Mauritius Strategy. We also call for a strengthening of United Nations system support to small island developing States in keeping with the multiple ongoing and emerging challenges faced by these States in achieving sustainable development”. The future we want, II. B. 33

Barbados Programme of Action, 1994

Mauritius Strategy, 2005

SAMOA, 2014

“Small island developing States are committed to promoting sustainable development, eradicating poverty and improving the livelihoods of their peoples by the implementation of strategies which build resilience and capacity to address their unique and particular vulnerabilities”, Draft Mauritius Strategy for the further implementation of the BPoA, § 5.

“Small islands developing State (…) should continue to work on the development of vulnerability indices and other indicators that reflect the status of small islands developing States and integrate ecological fragility and economic vulnerability. Consideration should be given to how such an index, as well as relevant studies undertaken on small island developing States by other international institutions, might be used in addition to other statistical measures as quantitative indicators of fragility”. General assembly BPoA, Barbados 1994, paragraphs 113 and 114.

“We reaffirm that small island developing States remain a special case for sustainable development in view of their unique and particular vulnerabilities and that they remain constrained in meeting their goals in all three dimensions of sustainable development”. Report of the third International Conference on SIDS, Chapter 1, § 5.

2. SD and VR indices: the missing link

• Under the impetus of the 90’s▫ Prolific works: cf. the review of composite indices (Angeon and

Bates, 2015) 12 representative indices

Briguglio, 1995; Wells, 1997; Atkins et al., 2000; UWI, 2002 Adrianto and Matsuda, 2004; Briguglio and Galea, 2004; Kali et al., 2005; Easty et al., 2006; Turvey, 2007; UN, 2008; Briguglio et al., 2009; Guillaumont, 2009, 2010

• Criticisms▫ These indexes particularly focus on growth descriptors to

characterize a country’s performance Most of these indexes claim to stress the economic dimension of VR

These indexes do not simultaneously cover all of the dimensions of sustainability

Multiple variables and computation methods exist Does a minimum set of variables that consistently describes VR exist?

=> An explicit interpretation of VR in terms of sustainability with the lowest number of variables should be stressed

Decomposition of composite indexes by dimensions

Angeon and Bates, 2015

Suggesting the NVRI – Selecting variables, graph of dependant relations

Angeon and Bates, 2015

Suggesting the NVRI - The B2A algorithm

Angeon and Bates, 2015

The NVRI is a standardized arithmetic average of 33 variables in the range [-1, 1]. NVRIj = Vj – Rj

The NVRI is a multimetric index that captures all of the dimensions of SD.

The dimensions of the NVRI do not have the same status:

• Economic and governance: control dimensions

• Environment, social and periphericity: contingent dimensions

Suggesting the NVRI – Four states of VR

Angeon and Bates, 2015

Suggesting the NVRI - Qualities and properties of the NVRI

Relevance and helpfulness

Measurability

Workability Flexibility

Comprehensiveness

Accuracy Replicability

Simplicity Methodological soundness

Comparability

Ease of interpretation

Computational robustness

Using both the scoreboard and the aggregated value of the NVRI to profile countries performance

3. Assessing VR trough a SD approach: a worldwide application of the NVRI

▫The data: International organizations:

World Bank (World Development Index and World Governance Index), the UN,

Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium: the International Environmental Agreements Database and

the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) National agencies=> countries with less than 10% missing data are

selected ▫ 95 countries

MDC, ADC, LDC, SIDS 7 SIDS: The Bahamas, Bahrain, the Dominican Republic,

Jamaica, the Maldives, Mauritius and Singapore

•Are SIDS more vulnerable than others?

Are SIDS more vulnerable than others?

Angeon and Bates, 2015

▫Comparing the EVI and the NVRI / the philosophy of the EVI

UN, 2013

The EVI is an arithmetic average of eight indicators in the range [0, 100]. The EVI does not cope with all of the dimensions of SD. All of the variables that compose the EVI have the same status.

Min -0.2032 8.2791Max 0.1308 63.0830

Median -0.0752 31.6192Q1 -0.1074 24.1894Q3 0.0202 35.1230

NVRI 2000-2009 EVI 2000-2009

Comparing the EVI and the NVRI / Empirical evidence

VariablesEVI 2000-

2009NVRI 2000-

209

EVI 2000-2009 1 0,01779

NVRI 2000-2009 0,01779 1

p-value <0,22

α = 0,05

H0: The variables are independent H1: The variables are dependentP-value > α => H0 is accepted

Spearman correlation matrix

▫Focus on the Caribbean

Stable resilience

No Caribbean countries in our sample

Singapore

Unstable resilience

The Bahamas

Malta, Cyprus (formerly SIDS)

Contained vulnerability

No Caribbean countries in our sample

Mauritius, Bahrain

Uncontrolled vulnerability

Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Venezuela (≠ SIDS)

Maldives

▫Discussion Need to address SD concerns for a more

holistic assessment of VR in compliance with the international organizations stance

We suggest the NVRI to help to define convenient policies an easy-to-use tool a scoreboard to pinpoint development

trajectories, and evaluate progress in achieving SD

=> For the Caribbean: lack of environmental data

3. Assessing VR trough a SD approach: a worldwide application of the NVRI

Thank you for your attention

valerie.angeon@martinique.univ-ag.frsamuel.bates@dauphine.fr