The United Nations has been assisting and extending cooperation to SIDS in their sustainable development efforts through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States finalized at the Global Conference held in Barbados in 1994, known also as the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA). This programme was reviewed and revamped at the five-year review held at the Twenty-second special session of the General Assembly in 1999, and the ten-year review held in Mauritius (10-14 January 2005). The latter outcome is known as the Mauritius Strategy for Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (MSI).
In 2014, the international community met in Apia, Samoa at the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (September 1 – 4) to reaffirm commitments to take urgent and concrete action to address the vulnerability of small island developing States, including through the sustained implementation of the Barbados Programme of Action and the Mauritius Strategy. The Conference underscored the urgency of finding additional solutions to the major challenges facing small island developing States in a concerted manner through a multi-stakeholder approach centered on genuine and durable partnerships.
Following the Third International Conference on SIDS, the UN General Assembly adopted in November 2014 a resolution on the outcome document of the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the 'SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway' (A/69/L.6).