The Maldives has highlighted technical challenges faced by small island developing states (SIDS) in using the PRAIS reporting platform at the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Director Ahmed Shan of the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy joined a panel discussion at the China Pavilion on the sidelines of COP17, focusing on national realities, reporting bottlenecks and targeted capacity needs across East, South and South-East Asia.
In his remarks, Shan highlighted difficulties faced by SIDS, particularly low-lying atoll islands, in using the PRAIS reporting platform. He said the platform’s current structure and data requirements do not always align with the limited land area, fragmented geography and monitoring capacities of atoll nations.
He also noted that land-cover classification products rely on low-resolution satellite imagery, which can fail to capture the fine-scale land degradation and coastal changes that are important for environmental assessment and planning in the Maldives.
The Maldives said it looks forward to working with technical support providers and the COP to develop more inclusive methodologies suited to SIDS, improve access to higher-resolution data and strengthen tailored capacity-building.
Such measures would help small island states improve the accuracy of their reporting and support more effective implementation of the Convention, the ministry said.