Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face a shared set of geographical, environmental, economic, and social challenges, and suffer from unique development needs and extreme vulnerability. These pose significant challenges in meeting the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

In close collaboration with the Resident Coordinator’s Office, the ILO convenes its sister agencies ITU, UNESCO, OHCHR, UNODC and UNOPS to support SDG acceleration by building community resilience and fostering economic diversification in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The joint programme receives most of its financial support from the UN Joint SDG Fund. Intended to be catalytic, funding supports integrated programmatic solutions of two years, leveraging the agencies’ complementary sets of expertise to:

• design employment policies and skills anticipation strategies for a job rich recovery;
• promote demand-driven business development services and entrepreneurship in strategic sectors;
• foster the transition to formality for resilient labour markets; and
• strengthen access to digital services, information, and digital skills for community resilience.