INTERVENTION BY MR. VIVEK GANESH, FIRST SECRETARY, PERMANENT MISSION OF SINGAPORE TO THE UNITED NATIONS AT THE ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION ON “RESILIENCE, BIODIVERISTY AND PARTNERSHIPS: SIDS ON THE ROAD TO COP17” 27 APRIL 2026 UNHQ, NEW YORK

Thank you, Tishka,

Singapore thanks the Permanent Mission of Armenia for convening today’s roundtable, and reaffirms our support to you in your presiding over COP17 in Yerevan later this year. The anchoring of this event in the anniversary of the 1994 Barbados Conference and the International Day of SIDS is itself a reminder of how long SIDS have been pressing for the partnerships and financing and how far we have come. In that regard, I also thank the briefers for the presentations; we are very excited by the wide array of initiatives, tools and indeed SIDS-specific strategies referenced such as the World Heritage Strategy for SIDS.

2                 Singapore is a Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and we approach the road to COP17 with the conviction that the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will only deliver if its 2030 targets are translated into practical action across countries of widely differing size and circumstance.

3                 Singapore’s own perspective is shaped by our experience as a small, low-lying, densely urbanised SIDS. Land scarcity might suggest that conservation and development are necessarily in tension; we have sought to demonstrate the opposite. Through our updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, our City in Nature vision, and the OneMillionTrees movement, we have worked to integrate biodiversity into the fabric of urban life rather than treat it as a residual of development. On the marine side, our Marine Conservation Action Plan, the 100K Corals initiative, and the second Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey reflect a similar approach to our coastal ecosystems. Singapore has also contributed the Singapore Index on Cities’ Biodiversity to the Convention’s toolkit, in support of Target 12 and the urban dimensions of the Framework. The Index is a self-assessment tool designed to help cities evaluate and monitor their biodiversity conservation.

4                 The same conviction has guided our approach to biodiversity on the high seas. We welcome the entry into force of the BBNJ Agreement in January, and whose successful conclusion we owe much to the leadership of SIDS, including Palau as the first State to deposit its instrument of accession. Singapore was one of the first Asian states to ratify the Agreement, and we look forward to working with SIDS and partners towards a successful first Conference of Parties.

5                 We look forward to working with Armenia, fellow SIDS, and partners across this gathering as we move toward Yerevan – and to ensuring that COP17 delivers on the ambitions the Framework has set out.

6                 Thank you.