This paper provides a synthesis view of the multifaceted impact of the global economic
crisis on the SIDS, focusing on the Pacific and Caribbean regions. It shows that the social
investment agenda, which has underpinned so much of the development progress of SIDS,
has been particularly challenged by the Global Economic crisis and will require innovations
and policy changes by SIDS in order to sustain and advance beyond current achievements.
Global action will be required to enhance the available fiscal space for these actions. In
addition, particular attention needs to be paid in the SIDS context to the design and
implementation of social policies that reduce vulnerability, improve resilience to
exogenous shocks and thus lower the human and productivity costs of the consequence of
exposure to repeated exogenous shocks. These include high unemployment and
underemployment, rising crime and persistent inequalities across income groups and
between rural and urban communities.  The transitive  effects of exogenous shocks on the  
incomes, food security and access to basic public goods    of poor and vulnerable
households demonstrate the need for a new policy approach, one which lends itself better
to increasing the resilience of SIDS to future  exogenous shocks than is presently the case.
The synthesis, based largely on experiences and lessons learnt from five countries from