Samoa is officially the Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) for the next two years and has also handed over the Pacific Small Island States (PSIDS) Chair position to Palau. 

The country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in New York, Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Dr. Pa’olelei Luteru while accepting the new role as Chair of the AOSIS, also handed over the position of Chair of the Pacific Small Island States (PSIDS) to Palau's Ambassador to the UN Ilana Seid in a handover ceremony.

Ambassador Fatumanava, who was part of the Samoa Government delegation to COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt last November had already begun preparations to take on the AOSIS role this year 2023.

In a press release that was issued by the Apia-based Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) on the sidelines of COP27 last November, the Samoan diplomat acknowledged that there is a lot of work ahead with Samoa taking on the AOSIS Chair.

“Samoa is very grateful, I think there is a lot of hard work ahead of us, we recognise this and we have no illusions that it’s going to be a lot of work but what’s important is that we work as a team,” Ambassador Fatumanava said. 

“It’s important to engage, you have to be counted, and of course Samoa is keen to do what it can. We are grateful to our Pacific family that they had chosen Samoa and Palau to lead in this area.”

Ambassador Fatumanava said the AOSIS Chairmanship is an opportunity for the Pacific to take a leadership role in some areas that perhaps had not been given the focus it deserved in the past.

“Within the mission of AOSIS, we had focused on two broad pillars, one is climate change and the other is sustainable development. Ocean was within the climate change pillar and during our tenure, we will propose that the third pillar in the work of AOSIS should be oceans.”