BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – The first Global Supply Chain Forum began here on Tuesday focusing on the policy actions required to better prepare countries to cope with future shocks to global supply chains.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley addressing first Global Supply Chain Forum (CMC Photo)The four-day forum is being organised by the UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the Barbados government and has brought together government officials, business leaders and experts, who will explore how to promote development through sustainable and resilient transport and logistics, improved connectivity and trade facilitation.
They will address digitalization, food security, transport costs, climate change, developing countries’ financing needs and how to better manage the energy transition in international transport.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley told the opening ceremony that there is need for a greater understanding of what small states face going forward.
“Very often we are asked to participate in international fora without an appreciation that our capacity in participating does not lead to any distortion of those matters of concern of public affairs or public policy.”
“I give the example all of the time of our percentage of global trade in goods and services that have no capacity to distort global trade. Because in goods it is 0.000 per cent and in services it is 0.001 per cent. But yet the rules were applied 30-something years ago to us as one, as if we had nothing else to suffer from.”
She said that the “one-size-fits-all” rule has led to the diminution and collapse in some instances of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors as well as “a failure of the international community to be able to allow us to have special and differential treatment that would be appropriate to our circumstances”.
Mottley said that the recent COVID-19 pandemic allowed for small states to see “literally the best and the worst of humanity.
“We saw the outpouring of support by some to provide countries like ourselves with access to vaccines and medical products. But we also saw essential supply chains shorten and divert away from those of us who were already the most unconnected, the islands, the least developed countries, the poorest communities.”
Mottley said that Barbados knew then that “one of the transformative outcomes of our country’s presidency of UNCTAD would be to engender a discussion on how better to make supply chains work for growth and development.
“If you ever wondered what the wild, wild west looked like, then you should have come to a small island state in the middle of the pandemic. Because there was nothing called rules.
“There was nothing called fairness. There was the domination of the mighty over those who could barely seek to survive,” Mottley said thanking UNCTAD on behalf of all small island developing states (SIDS) for focusing on the “global supply chain disruptions and the impact that it is having on the cost of cargo, transportation, and overall cost of living for our people, particularly the most vulnerable of our people”.
Mottley said that there has been a renewed focus in UNCTAD, which is observing its 60th anniversary on the interest of SIDS and that the strategy, launched with a related trust fund will bring meaningful benefits to people.
But she noted that since the COVID pandemic, the world has continued a pace “with a focus and an instability that makes the pursuit of prosperity for all a difficult, difficult challenge for the rest of us.
“The reality is, we’ve heard it from all of you, that even as the effects of the pandemic subsided, what did we have? Other crises emerging that, if not contained, would collectively threaten and still do the very foundations of multilateralism. We know that the state of world affairs, therefore, is significantly, significantly more volatile than it was in 2021 when you were last here”.
Mottley said that this has had a direct impact on maritime, on shipping, adding “whether we like it or not, 80 per cent of the world’s trade takes place through shipping.
“And when you start to frame the pandemic as the backdrop where supply chains were disrupted at the point of manufacturing and not transport, and then you add to it what has happened between the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal, one reflecting, in fact, a microcosm of what we’re seeing in the world, one reflecting consequences from war, man-made, and one reflecting consequences from nature, but propelled by man.
“The reality is, traditional shipping routes have now become war zones, and this is driving up the cost for carriers, for importers, and for consumers worldwide. The geopolitical tensions and conflicts are causing major disruptions to the maritime industry and the movement of cargo.”
Mottley said that a number of the major carriers are now forced to travel longer in order to reach their destination with at least one major shipping company indicating that these disruptions are causing them to face increased energy consumption as high as 40 per cent in some vessels, and in some other vessels, as high as 70 per cent in order to get to their destinations.
Mottley said as a result of these disruptions, it is the ordinary people who suffer largely because, according to UNCTAD, “we will recognize that small island developing states as a group pays more than any other country group for transport.
“The reality is that during the COVID period, transport and insurance costs rose by 76% when compared with the period before the pandemic. And the data suggests that the recent supply chain crisis led to consumer price increases in small island developing states, yet again, that far outstrip those in other developing countries and across the rest of the world.”
She said additionally, over the last year, 10 years, the line of connectivity for SIDS has become scarcer.
“It has fallen by 10 per cent as compared to the world average, which has fallen, I think, by about eight per cent. In other words, we are the first to lose market share. We’re the last to be seen. And we are the ones who now carry the brunt of the global… How shall I put it, to be polite?”
Mottley said the global obsession with the pursuit of a lifestyle that runs contrary to everything that is necessary to save the planet and civilization. “
The Barbados prime minister spoke of the environmental and other problems faced by her country since 2021 saying that she was painting the picture “because you have to better understand why we are driven to the Bridgetown Initiative and our determination to be able to reform the global financial architecture and to create a fair opportunity and a new deal for developing countries, whether they are vulnerable middle-income countries or vulnerable small island developing states.
“The ability, therefore, for us to be able to have inclusive, sustainable, and resilient supply chains matter because we already have significant competing demands for what we must spend our resources on.
“At the same time, our citizens want to know why the price of certain food has gone up, why the price of certain goods has gone up, what is going on, and the outcry of the populations the world over is the same.
“It is therefore important that we come together in forums such as these to be able to understand significantly how we can make a meaningful difference to move in from the clearly outmoded objective of the most efficient supply chain to the most resilient supply chain, given all that is happening globally.”
Mottley said that if Caribbean countries want to recognize that if the funding is barely available for them to adapt to the new realities of climate, “then we will become compromised in our ability to be able to put together the funding for us to improve the supply chain capacity within the region because the Caribbean, as a series of islands predominantly, needs sea bridges and air bridges.
“But very often the investment doesn’t make sense because the size of our populations do not allow people to get the return on investment that they otherwise need. But it is still a critical public good because without the air and sea bridges, we are literally locked off from the promise and potential of true development.”
Mottley said she was making those statements to remind the global community “that people make judgments without necessarily recognizing that sometimes you need a leveling hand. “And that leveling hand has to be in the area of both finance as well as policy space in order to be able to make the difference for us just to have a genuine opportunity to be able to participate. With respect to new areas of economic activity, we believe that we still have a role to play.”
She said the current situation is not only confined to the Caribbean.
“There are small island states in the Indian Ocean. There are small island states in the Pacific, and regrettably, we ask for this engagement at the very time that regrettably, we are on the front line of the climate crisis.
“We are on the front line of a debt crisis. We are on the front line of a geopolitical crisis. Now, if you were a fearful person, you would run and hide, but we don’t have that luxury. We have to confront our realities, and we have to make the best that we can with them.
“I believe that this forum this week will expand the policy options that governments can have, that companies can look to, and that we can all together collectively do in order to make sure that the very basic objective of making lives livable and affordable, not just for those who have a lot or who want a lot, but for all people…”
Mottley said she prefers to sound idealistic rather than the “harbingers of war who continue to pursue it in defense of greed and profit that one day will mean that the world as we know it will not exist, because that crude and covetous behavior will lead ultimately to the decimation of the planet and to the destruction of people”.
