At a glance
Effects of climate change on the region
A leading voice among Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and consisting of more than 116 islands, the Seychelles archipelago expects to be hit hard by the impacts of climate change. These impacts include floods, sea level rises and coastal erosion, droughts, together with tropical storms and cyclones set to become more frequent and intense.
Coral reefs, for example, protect the islands, attract tourists from around the world, and nurture the archipelago’s world class fisheries and biodiversity. But these reefs are increasingly threatened by rising sea surface temperatures and changes to the ocean’s chemistry.
The Indian Ocean nation is taking action to counter the negative impacts of global warming, in terms of both practical actions on the ground and within the framework of international processes.
The Seychelles Sustainable Development Strategy (SSDS) 2012-20 is another substantial and more recent policy framework also covering the climate change sector (its major chapter in financial terms). Following the previous Seychelles Environmental Management Plan (EMPS) [2000-10] the SSDS 2012-20 is the national instrument setting implementation priorities for sustainable development in line with Agenda 21. One of the key limitations of the SSDS is a weak integration with other economic and sector programmes under implementation, and a lack of sequenced chronogram with intermediate strategic objectives and milestones in the medium term.
The Government of the Seychelles (GoS) leads the response to the climate change challenge , authoring and endorsing reform policies and strategies, involving domestic actors including non-state actors (NSA), enabling increasing participation of the private sector in the implementation of the SCCS / SSDS, and engaging in dialogue with donors, showing control and leadership in modernization reforms on public financial management and good governance, accountability and environmental sustainability.