Small Islands Big Picture

In June 2026, RESI launched the first ever “State of SIDS” report, an extensive analysis of how Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are responding to a rapidly changing global context in which the defence of their special case is more urgent than ever, but also potentially requires new ideas, innovations and arguments to support this action. The report was developed by a cross-regional team of almost 30 SIDS experts.

In this episode, which is the counterpart to Episode 24 on the SIDS Future Forum, Emily and Matt explore the report and its implications in depth. In “Island Voices”, we hear from Jabal Hassanali from the Global Island Partnership. Our RESI colleagues, Jack Corbett and Eliorah Malifa join us for the “Explainer”, to discuss the process of putting the report together. Then, in the “Big Picture”, some of the lead authors of the thematic chapters tell us what their key messages are. Finally, in “No Stupid Questions” Matt and Emily reflect on the overarching insights from the report and how they might shape preparations for the SIDS Future Forum and State of SIDS report in 2028.

Featuring:

Emily Wilkinson (host) | RESI Director and Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global
Matthew Bishop (host) | RESI Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
Jabal Hassanali | Strategy Manager, Global Island Partnership (GLISPA)
Jack Corbett | RESI Director and Deputy Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia
Eliorah Malifa | Lead editor and Senior Research Fellow at Monash University, Australia
Stefano Moncada | Director, Islands and Small States Institute at the University of Malta
Preeya Mohan | Professor at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad
Yvonne Underhill-Sem | Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand
Merisa Thompson | Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham, UK
Viliame Kasanawaka | Director of ShipWrecked Lab, Fiji
Kalim Shah | Associate Professor and Director of the Island Policy Lab at the University of Delaware, USA
Gail Hurley | RESI Director and Development Finance Expert

Resources:

Programme page | Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
The Report | The State of SIDS 2026: Defending the Special Case
RESI Book | Sustaining Development in Small Islands
RESI Report | How SIDS view their development partners
Trailer for new RESI film | Climate Blueprint: Barbados
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Opening session recording: navigating the now
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | State of SIDS Report Chapters 1 and 2 recording
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | State of SIDS Report Chapters 2 and 3 recording
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Event homepage and resources
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Wilton Park Event Report
SIDS Future Forum 2024 | Shaping the Future of SIDS

LISTENER SURVEY: To help us make Small Islands, Big Picture even better, we’ve put together a short audience survey and would love your input. You can find the survey at this link and your feedback will help us shape future episodes, topics, and guests. If you have a moment, please fill it out: it only takes a couple of minutes would mean a lot to us. Thanks for listening and supporting the show!
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African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are sometimes overlooked in global debates that tend to be dominated by the Pacific and the Caribbean. Yet across Africa’s island states, substantial advances are being made in terms of regional collaboration, good governance, sustainable development, climate resilience and cultural protection. At the same time, the region faces distinctive challenges: vast distances separate African SIDS and their critical mass is limited relative to counterparts elsewhere.

In this episode, Emily and Matt are joined by Stefano Moncada from the University of Malta to speak to panel of experts – Paul Akiwumi from Ghana, Penda Choppy from Seychelles, Ramola Ramtohul from Mauritius, and Antonio Palazuelos Prieto from Cape Verde – about the exciting developments that are happening across African SIDS. They explore what is going on across the continent and why African island development matters to the wider story of small islands, highlighting lessons, successes and insights that can inform resilience and development efforts across the global community of islands.

Featuring:

Emily Wilkinson (host) | RESI Director and Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global
Matthew Bishop (host) | RESI Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
Stefano Moncada | Director, Islands and Small States Institute at the University of Malta
Paul Akiwumi | Senior Fellow, London School of Economics and former Director of the UNCTAD Division for Africa, Least Developed Countries and Special Programmes
Ramola Ramtohul | Associate Professor in Gender Studies and Sociology at the University of Mauritius
Antonio Palazuelos Prieto | SIDS Expert at UN Economic Commission for Africa
Penda Choppy | Director, Creole Language and Culture Research Institute at the University of Seychelles

Resources:

Programme page | Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
Stefano’s profile | University of Malta website
Paul’s profile | Paul Akiwumi LinkedIn
UNCTAD’s work on productive capacities | SIDS PCI website
Ramola’s profile | Ramola Ramtohul LinkedIn
Ramola’s book | The Mauritian Paradox
Antonio’s profile | Antonio Palazuelos LinkedIn
Penda’s profile | University of Seychelles website
A paper by Jack, our RESI Co-Director | African Exceptions

LISTENER SURVEY: To help us make Small Islands, Big Picture even better, we’ve put together a short audience survey and would love your input. You can find the survey at this link and your feedback will help us shape future episodes, topics, and guests. If you have a moment, please fill it out: it only takes a couple of minutes would mean a lot to us. Thanks for listening and supporting the show!
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Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have long been recognised by the United Nations as a “special case” for sustainable development. This reflects the fact that small islands across the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean and Atlantic regions face unique and intensifying challenges, including climate change, debt pressures, geopolitical uncertainty, and limited fiscal space.

But in a rapidly shifting global system, that recognition is under increasing strain. How do small island states ensure their needs are still understood, prioritised and acted on?

In this episode, we explore the key questions at the heart of that debate, drawing on insights from the SIDS Future Forum 2026, a space which brought over 50 experts together - SIDS diplomats, officials from international organisations, representatives of donor governments and researchers - to reflect on the future of the global SIDS agenda and the implementation of the Antigua and Barbuda Agenda for SIDS (ABAS), the UN’s ten-year programme of action.

In an extended version of our “Big Picture” segment, we hear reflections from senior SIDS representatives to the UN, including Tania Romualdo (Cabo Verde), Walton Webson (Antigua and Barbuda), Ali Naseer Mohamed (Maldives) and Nicholas Cox (Barbados), on what it will take to keep the “special case” relevant and credible in a world of sustained geopolitical upheaval.

In “No Stupid Questions”, Matt and Emily explore some of the new ideas that emerged from the Future Forum, including why fresh evidence, insights and arguments are needed to defend the UN-recognised “special case” for sustainable development that SIDS have held since the first UN programme of action in the 1990s.

LISTENER SURVEY: To help us make Small Islands, Big Picture even better, we’ve put together a short audience survey and would love your input. You can find the survey at this link and your feedback will help us shape future episodes, topics, and guests. If you have a moment, please fill it out: it only takes a couple of minutes would mean a lot to us. Thanks for listening and supporting the show!

Featuring:
Emily Wilkinson (host) | RESI Director and Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global
Matthew Bishop (host) | RESI Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
Tania Romualdo | Permanent Representative of Cabo Verde to the UN
Walton Webson | Permanent Representative of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN
Ali Naseer Mohamed | Permanent Representative of Maldives to the UN
Nicholas Cox | Deputy Permanent Representative of Barbados to the UN

Resources:
Programme page | Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
RESI Book | Sustaining Development in Small Islands
RESI Report | How SIDS view their development partners
Trailer for new RESI film | Climate Blueprint: Barbados
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Opening session recording: navigating the now
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | State of SIDS Report Chapters 1 and 2 recording
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | State of SIDS Report Chapters 2 and 3 recording
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Event homepage and resources
SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Wilton Park Event Report
SIDS Future Forum 2024 | Shaping the Future of SIDS

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Small islands generally did far better during the pandemic than bigger (and often richer) countries with more complex health systems. In this episode, Emily and Matt ask: what have been the longer-term effects of Covid-19 more than five years on? Have lessons have been learned for the next shock? Where can we see both improvements and things to worry about in health provision and outcomes?

We welcome two global public health experts for our “Explainer”. Sophie Harman tells us why we should worry about not only the decline of multilateral health governance, but also what might be replacing it. Simon Rushton talks us through some of the longer-term effects of the pandemic on the Global South. Then, in the Big Picture, we are joined by Roannie Ng Shiu from Samoa and Aviane Auguste from St Lucia to learn why SIDS did relatively so well in the pandemic but why more prosaic health challenges – from measles to dengue and non-communicable diseases like diabetes – are of greater immediate concern. Finally, in no stupid questions, Matt and Emily ask whether small size and islandness are actually secret weapons in helping SIDS to achieve better health outcomes.

LISTENER SURVEY: To help us make Small Islands, Big Picture even better, we’ve put together a short audience survey and would love your input. You can find the survey at this link and your feedback will help us shape future episodes, topics, and guests. If you have a moment, please fill it out: it only takes a couple of minutes would mean a lot to us. Thanks for listening and supporting the show!

Featuring:
Emily Wilkinson (host) | RESI Director and Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global
Matthew Bishop (host) | RESI Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
Sophie Harman | Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary, University of London
Simon Rushton | Professor of International Politics, University of Sheffield
Roannie Ng Shiu | Director, Institute for Pacific and Global Health, University of Auckland
Avianne Auguste | Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational health, McGill University

Resources:
Programme page | Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
Sophie’s profile | Professor Sophie Harman
Sophie’s film | Pili
Sophie’s book | Sick of it: the global fight for women’s health
Simon’s profile | Professor Simon Rushton
Simon’s award | ESRC Impact Prize: Improbable Dialogues
Simon & Sophie’s recent Lancet article | Global health partnerships for a post-2030 agenda
Roannie’s profile | Dr Roannie Ng Shiu
Roannie’s Lancet article | The 2024 small island developing states report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change
Aviane’s profile | Dr Aviane Auguste
A public lecture by Aviane | Improving health outcomes in small islands
An important Lancet piece | SIDS standing together on NCDs and mental health
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In this episode, Emily, Matt and the other RESI Directors look back on everything that happened in the world of small islands during 2025, discussing hot topics, highlights and lowlights while looking forward to 2026 will bring. The team also discusses how their own policy and research has shaped conversations around different SIDS agendas - from debt and oceans to geopolitics and climate justice.

NB: Hurricane Melissa cast a very long shadow over the final months of 2025 and will continue to do so for Jamaicans as they rebuild their country. If you would like to support those efforts, you can make a donation to the government’s relief fund here.

Featuring:
o Emily Wilkinson (host) | RESI Director and Principal Research Fellow at ODI Global
o Matthew Bishop (host) | RESI Director and Senior Lecturer at the University of Sheffield
o Courtney Lindsay | RESI Director and Senior Research Officer at ODI Global
o Gail Hurley | RESI Director and Development Finance Expert
o George Carter | RESI Director and Deputy Head of Department of Pacific Affairs/Director of Pacific Institute, Australian National University
o Jack Corbett | RESI Director and Head of School of Social Sciences, Monash University
o Rachid Bouiha | RESI Director and Economic Affairs Officer, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)

Resources:
o Programme page | Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
o Our RESI book | Sustaining Development in Small Islands
o Courtney’s AI report | Engines of Growth: Building Knowledge Economies in SIDS
o Another AI blog | Why SIDS need to act quickly on AI
o The documentary mentioned by Courtney | Life and Debt
o Hurricane Melissa op-ed | Climate disasters will send many countries into a debt spiral – but there’s a way out
o Matt and Courtney’s Jamica debt report | Breaking the Cycle of Debt in Jamaica
o The full RESI Debt Project (multiple papers) | Breaking the Cycle of Debt in SIDS
o Our Global Voices piece from last year | Why small islands need their own Marshall Plan
o Gail and Emily’s work on debt service costs | Tackling the cost of capital in small vulnerable nations
o Gail and Emily’s work on oceans | Turning the tide: enhancing ocean equity for SIDS
o Emily’s op-ed on UN climate negotiations | Why small climate-vulnerable island states punch well above their weight in UN climate talks
o Emily’s piece on climate justice | Tides of justice: how SIDS are redefining the fight against climate change
o Our work on capacity building | Fit for size: rethinking capacity strengthening in SIDS
o Our work on the FfD4 process | Leveraging the Sevilla Commitment in favour of SIDS
o Emily’s work on anticipatory action finance | Bracing for Impact: a Caribbean blueprint
o Our work on geopolitical competition | Geopolitical competition, bilateral aid, and the collective interests of SIDS
o Short trailer for Emily’s new documentary | Climate Blueprint: Barbados
o George’s work on oceanic diplomacy | Reasserting indigenous pathways
o Rachid’s work on productive capacities | Stronger and greener productive capacities for just transitions in Caribbean SIDS
o SIDS Future Forum 2026 | Wilton Park Website
o UN SIDS Partnership Awards 2025 | Partnership Brief
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