Seychelles Calls for Urgent MVI Adoption and Wider African Trade Routes at AU Executive Council
Source: https://mfa.gov.sc/news/49th-ordinary-session-of-the-african-union-executive-council/
Released: 2026-07-28
VICTORIA, Seychelles. Seychelles has called on the African Union Executive Council to act quickly on the Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index and to widen Africa’s trade routes, warning that the country is still feeling the economic cost of the war in the Middle East.
Speaking on the opening day of the 49th Ordinary Session of the African Union Executive Council, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora, Ambassador Barry Faure, said the conflict had placed heavy pressure on small island economies and that existing vulnerability measures had not kept pace.
He told the Council that tourism arrivals in Seychelles fell by forty percent in the first week of the conflict at the height of the disruptions. Several months later, arrivals remain down by twelve and a half percent compared with the same period the year before. He said rising shipping costs and fuel surcharges had compounded the shock and that the burden had passed through to Seychellois households.
Minister Faure said Seychelles needed stronger links between the continent and its island and coastal states through regional shipping lines as a way to grow intra-African trade. He said diversified trade routes were no longer an option to consider later, but a priority.
While the World Bank ranks Seychelles as having the highest GDP per capita in Africa, Minister Faure urged the Council not to measure resilience by wealth alone. He said a population of about one hundred thousand leaves the country with a far narrower margin to absorb global shocks and called for greater recognition of the particular vulnerabilities faced by small island states through the implementation of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index in any assessment of economic resilience.
The Republic of Mauritius, a fellow small developing island state facing similar challenges from the conflict in the Middle East, expressed support for the implementation of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index, in what Minister Faure described as a clear sign of solidarity between the two countries.
Minister Faure is being accompanied by Mr Conrad Mederic, Ambassador of the Republic of Seychelles to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union, Ms Trisha Hoareau, Second Secretary in the Embassy, and Mrs Nisha Chengo, Second Secretary in the Ministry.
The 49th Ordinary Session of the African Union Executive Council opened in Addis Ababa on July 28, 2026.
