Small states continue to demonstrate leadership, creativity and resolve in tackling some of the world’s most complex development challenges. Our Small States Bulletin for 2025 summarises the Commonwealth Secretariat's practical achievements with and for our small state member countries: promoting fiscal sustainability, unlocking climate finance, advancing clean energy transitions, strengthening export readiness, enhancing digital service delivery and shaping global rules in emerging sectors such as seabed minerals.
So, what did the Commonwealth and small states do together in 2025?
- Delivered reform: In 2025, the Commonwealth delivered export, digital, climate and governance reforms across 12 small states – from Mauritius to Antigua, and Fiji to Namibia.
- Boosted debt transparency in the Caribbean: With the IMF, we delivered training for 33 debt managers from 16 Caribbean countries to strengthen debt reporting and accountability using Commonwealth Meridian.
- Helped Fiji unlock new climate finance: Our Climate Finance Adviser assisted Fiji to secure more than US$8 million for community‑led resilience and the planned relocation of climate‑impacted villages.
- Built momentum behind clean energy: Commonwealth toolkits helped Barbados, Dominica, Seychelles and Antigua and Barbuda to develop investment‑ready renewable energy and electric‑mobility plans.
- Widened Namibia's access to climate finance: We supported national institutions to gain Green Climate Fund accreditation, opening access to greater adaptation and drought‑resilience financing.
This bulletin – intended as the first in an annual series – reflects on these achievements and how they demonstrate both the strength of the Commonwealth family and the power of working together to deliver meaningful outcomes for small states. It highlights how collective action, shared expertise and solidarity are translating into real impact on the ground, and identifies a selection of interventions supported in small states in 2025 that are already making a difference – demonstrating innovation, adaptability and resilience. These interventions now require scaling up to deepen impact and extend benefits across the wider membership. It also provides an overview of global economic and policy developments, and of our major partnerships and knowledge products on small states, in 2025.
Our priorities for 2026 will centre on:
- expanding access to affordable and innovative finance by pushing forward agendas such as the Bridgetown Initiative and consideration of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index by international financial institutions
- enabling small states to influence global policy debates with evidence and coherence, particularly in the revised Small States Advocacy Strategy thematic areas of economic vulnerability, climate action, access to finance, debt sustainability and digital transformation
- strengthening economic policy and strategy implementation capacities
- scaling successful models of fiscal sustainability across regions.