Breaking the Debt Cycle: Strengthening Financial Resilience in Small Island Developing States

Repeated and intensifying climate events push SIDS into cycles of debt, as economic, developmental, and infrastructure damages accumulate. A close examination of disaster-related damages in SIDS reveals that since 1960, there has been a consistent increase in the economic costs of disasters, with a noticeable escalation starting in the mid-1980s. According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the impact on GDP due to weather, climate, and water-related events on SIDS between 1970 and 2020 was $153 billion – a…