Overview of international best practices

This section is just a brief summary of the current literature around best-practices for policy areas. Although policies considered broadly best practice don’t necessarily translate directly to the Maldivian context and doing so would require deep analysis for how each one could be implemented and its expected impact, we include a brief overview with links to deeper explanations as a possible source of ideas or inspiration for further policy development.

Inter-island connectivity

1. Adopt a reliability-first service plan with defined spare-vessel ratios and public reliability targets: Ferry systems should set explicit spare-vessel ratios and public reliability targets so planning, budgeting, and operations are anchored in dependable access.^204,205
2. Institutionalize planned-maintenance systems (PMS) and a dedicated maintenance base: Disciplined planned-maintenance systems and a dedicated maintenance base are the single strongest predictors of ferry reliability and safety compliance.^206,207
3. Incorporate IMO Model Regulations on Domestic Ferry Safety into national law and enforcement: Countries should translate IMO Model Regulations on Domestic Ferry Safety into enforceable national rules for design, crewing, operations, and oversight.²⁰⁸
4. Develop climate-resilient terminals and routes with redundancy: Ferry terminals and routes must be designed for storms, sea-level rise, and global disruptions, with elevated infrastructure and redundant routes to protect access.^209,210,211
5. Standardize multimodal and inclusive terminal design: Terminals should provide safe, clearly signed pedestrian access, co-located bus/taxi links, lighting, toilets, and gender-responsive spaces as standard features, not amenities.²¹²
6. Digitize passenger information and ticketing with open data standards: Schedules, routes, and disruptions should be digitised using GTFS/GTFS-Flex and integrated ticketing so ferries appear in mainstream trip planning and can be managed in real time.^213,214
7. Use hub-and-spoke network design with clockface schedules and timed connections: Inter-island networks work best with atoll hubs, regular “clockface” timetables, and timed connections that make medical, education, and tourism trips predictable.^215,216
8. Align governance and financing with modern port and terminal toolkits: Clear governance, performance contracts, and medium-term vessel and terminal programs should translate service standards into credible budgets and procurement pipelines.^217,218

Housing and urbanisation²¹⁹

1. Make housing supply more responsive with missing-middle density and ADUs: Gentle upzoning for missing-middle housing and legal ADUs lets small projects respond quickly to demand, easing prices without disruptive mega-projects.^220,221,222
2. Streamline approvals with clear time limits, by-right rules near transit, and digital tracking: Predictable, time-limited, mostly by-right approvals near transit, backed by online tracking, reduce risk and permitting delays that kill or shrink projects.^223,224,225
3. Use targeted housing allowances or vouchers with mobility support instead of broad price controls: Well-designed housing allowances or vouchers plus mobility counselling help low-income households reach better neighbourhoods and subsequently better health and social outcomes without blunt, market-wide price controls.^226,227,228
4. Treat rent regulation as a narrow, time-bound safety valve and always pair it with supply measures: If used, rent regulation should be tightly scoped, temporary, and combined with strong supply measures to avoid response by developers being lower-quality housing builds to maintain profit margins.^229,230,231
5. Mobilise under-used stock through vacancy/empty-home taxes and short-term rental controls: Vacancy taxes and short-term rental rules, backed by monitoring, can shift investor and second homes back into the long-term rental market.^232,233
6. Adopt SIDS-appropriate resilient building standards and siting rules: Urban atoll housing needs higher floor levels, coastal setbacks, and risk-informed siting and codes to reduce damage from storms, floods, and sea-level rise.^234,235,236
7. Design for heat and retrofit existing stock using passive-cooling measures: Housing policies should prioritise shade, ventilation, cool roofs, and other passive-cooling retrofits to cut heat stress and reliance on energy-hungry air-conditioning.^237,238,239
8. Embed universal design and accessibility in codes and public programmes: Building codes and housing programmes should require universal design from the outset so older people and persons with disabilities can use homes and neighbourhoods; doing so is cheapest at build time vs retrofitting.²⁴⁰
9. Ring-fence operations and maintenance with enforceable service standards in social and affordable housing: Social and affordable housing should have funded O&M and enforceable standards for damp, mould, and hazards, with clear repair timelines and oversight.²⁴¹
10. Modernise land administration and shift from transaction taxes to recurrent property taxes: Digital land registries and cadastres should underpin recurrent property taxes, while high transaction taxes that block moves should be reduced.^242,243
11. Plan location-efficient growth with housing near jobs, transit, and services: New housing should be steered toward sites near jobs, transit, and core services, reducing transport costs and unsafe expansion into hazard-prone fringes.^244,245
12. Reduce homelessness with Housing First, not staircase models: Chronic homelessness strategies should prioritise Housing First – permanent housing plus support – because it delivers better long-term stability than staircase or treatment-first models.^246,247
13. Reform parking by ending minimums and pricing scarce spaces to support housing and cut private vehicle use: Removing parking minimums and pricing scarce spaces appropriately lowers project costs, supports infill housing, and reduces vehicle dependence.²⁴⁸
14. Use inclusionary zoning sparingly and calibrate it with feasibility testing: Inclusionary zoning should be modest, offset, and regularly feasibility-tested so it delivers affordable units without choking overall housing supply.^249,250

Urban transportation

1. Build high-frequency bus corridors with BRT/BRT-lite features before considering rail: Cities should first build high-frequency bus corridors with strong BRT/BRT-lite features, as recent standards and evaluations show large, cost-effective ridership and travel-time gains.^{251,252,253,254}
2. Pair clean-air or congestion charging with visible bus upgrades, not as a stand-alone measure: Clean-air or congestion charging works best when introduced alongside visible public-transport improvements, strengthening both health impacts and public legitimacy.^{255,256,257,258}
3. Manage curb space with demand-responsive parking and phase out minimum-parking mandates: Demand-based parking pricing and removal of blanket minimum-parking mandates improve curb turnover, reduce cruising, and free land for housing and more productive uses.^{259,260,261,262}
4. Reallocate street space to buses and safe active travel as the main lever for mode shift: Reallocating street space to bus priority and safe walking and cycling networks is the most reliable way to shift trips away from private cars.^263,264
5. Put reliability first – headways, signal priority, and transparent on-time dashboards: Transit agencies should focus on even headways, transit-signal priority, and public performance dashboards, since reliability drives ridership more than small speed increases.^265,266
6. Design for equity and climate resilience in streets and stops: Street and stop design must prioritise safety, shade, accessibility, and flood resilience so women, children, older people, and low-income riders can travel reliably in a changing climate.^267,268

Social protection^269,270

1. Build adaptive, shock-responsive social protection (ASP) systems with clear triggers: Social-protection systems should be designed to scale automatically during shocks using pre-agreed triggers, financing, and delivery mechanisms.^271,272,273
2. Use dynamic, interoperable social registries linked to ID and key administrative data: Regularly updated, interoperable social registries linked to ID systems and sector data improve targeting accuracy and enable rapid shock responses.^274,275,276
3. Digitize G2P payments end-to-end with strong consumer protection: Governments should pay benefits digitally over open rails while guaranteeing choice, recourse, and protections for low-income and digitally inexperienced users.^277,278,279
4. Progressively expand child benefits toward universal coverage: Broad child cash benefits with predictable amounts significantly cut child poverty and improve development outcomes when expanded toward universal coverage.^280,281,282
5. Maintain or introduce social pensions with simple eligibility and indexed benefits: Simple age-based social pensions with indexed benefits are essential for income security in informal economies with limited contributory coverage.^283,284
6. Adopt a clear, transparent targeting strategy and publish error metrics: Targeting choices should be explicit, combining simple categorical rules with data tools, and governments should publish inclusion and exclusion error metrics.^285,286,287
7. Institutionalize grievance redress and beneficiary feedback (multi-channel GRMs): Accessible grievance mechanisms with clear timelines and escalation paths are core safeguards for digital and analogue social-protection systems.^288,289
8. Hard-wire data-protection and inclusion safeguards into social protection digitization: Digitised social protection must be anchored in strong data-protection laws, clear purpose limits, and safeguards against exclusion or discrimination.²⁹⁰
9. Pair core cash transfers with “productive inclusion” where cost-effective: Where justified, cash transfers can be complemented by targeted “productive inclusion” packages, but intensive graduation models should be reserved for specific groups.^291,292
10. Prefer cash or cash-plus over in-kind support where markets function: Where markets work, cash or cash-plus programmes generally deliver better welfare and flexibility than in-kind support or price subsidies.^293,294,295
11. Maldives and SIDS – build ASP and digital G2P that cover multiple risks with strong recourse: For SIDS, priority is interoperable registries and robust digital G2P that can flex across disasters, price shocks, disability, and unemployment with strong grievance systems.²⁹⁶

Wellbeing of the vulnerable

1. Make health, social protection, and services explicitly disability-inclusive and invest in assistive technology. Disability-inclusive health and social protection systems must finance and deliver assistive products and accessible services at scale.^297,298,299
2. Disability-inclusive social protection (cover disability-related extra costs; link to services and employment) is needed. Income support alone misses participation barriers; inclusive design reduces poverty and enables work.^300,301
3. Expand healthy-ageing and integrated care, build sustainable LTC, and prevent elder abuse: Healthy-ageing policies should prioritise integrated community care, sustainable long-term care financing, and strong elder-abuse prevention and monitoring.³⁰²
4. Adopt WHO’s ICOPE approach in primary/community care and invest in healthy ageing. Early detection and community pathways maintain function and delay expensive care.³⁰³
5. Develop a fiscally sound long-term care (LTC) system (eligibility, benefits, quality assurance, mixed delivery) and plan financing. Rapid ageing in LMICs is outpacing ad-hoc family care.³⁰⁴
6. Children’s rights, welfare, and protection – use INSPIRE, strong parenting support, and family-based care. Preventing violence against children (VAC) and child welfare should follow INSPIRE, strengthen parenting support, and prioritise safe family-based care over institutions. These strategies are the “best buys” with multi-country causal evidence.^305,306
7. Run child protection case management to the 2024 inter-agency standard; integrate with health, police, social services. Consistent screening, referral, safety planning, and follow-up improve outcomes and accountability.³⁰⁷
8. Prevent unnecessary separation; prioritize family-based care; phase down large institutions. Evidence links institutionalization to poorer outcomes. Best practice is family strengthening, kinship/foster care, and small, temporary residential care only when necessary.^308,309
9. Adopt the RESPECT Women prevention framework; pair it with survivor-centred health, justice, and social services. The latest review-of-reviews shows prevention works when multi-level actions are combined; health systems must deliver first-line support. Meta-analysis finds community mobilisation / group programmes reduce recent IPV – supports scaling beyond one-to-one services.^310,311,312
10. For survivors of domestic and sexual violence, combine prevention with survivor-centred, integrated services: 24/7 helplines, one-stop centres (medical, psychosocial, legal), safe shelter, and risk-led policing/case management. GBV strategies must pair prevention with survivor-centred, multi-sector services, including health, justice, and social support.³¹³
11. Safeguarding and complaints mechanisms across government and contracted providers. Frameworks should set minimum standards and safe complaint channels for all agencies and contracted service providers.³¹⁴
12. Data systems and monitoring that are disaggregated and case-management-ready are essential to identify vulnerable groups and coordinate responses.^315,316
13. Disability-inclusive DRR and emergency response: Disaster and emergency plans must include people with disabilities through accessible warnings, mapping, DPO involvement, and inclusive shelters.³¹⁷

Women and gender equality

1. Build the care economy through affordable childcare and quality elder care: Expanding affordable childcare and elder care is one of the most powerful levers for increasing women’s labour-force participation and earnings.^318,319,320
2. Design parental leave for gender equality with non-transferable, well-paid quotas for fathers: Parental-leave systems should include non-transferable, well-paid quotas for fathers so caregiving and career breaks are shared more equally.³²¹
3. Enforce pay equity and pay transparency: Equal-pay laws need pay-transparency, reporting, and enforcement mechanisms to narrow gender pay gaps and expose unjustified differences.^322,323
4. Prevent and respond to gender-based violence using RESPECT and ILO C190: GBV policy should combine RESPECT-based prevention with survivor-centred services and workplace protections aligned with ILO Convention 190.^324,325,326
5. Close the mobile-internet gender gap and ensure online safety: Reducing device, data, skills, and safety barriers for women is essential for digital inclusion and female-led business growth.³²⁷
6. Use gender-responsive public procurement to grow women-led firms: Gender-responsive procurement can channel public spending toward women-owned or gender-responsive firms when eligibility, targets, and monitoring are well designed.^328,329,330
7. Embed gender-responsive budgeting and fix gender-data gaps: Gender-responsive budgeting and better sex-disaggregated data should be built into budget cycles so spending decisions reflect women’s and men’s different needs.^331,332,333
8. Increase women’s leadership and representation with temporary measures and pipelines: Quotas or targets plus leadership pipelines can accelerate women’s representation in politics and management without harming organisational performance.^334,335,336
9. Make public spaces and transport safe for women: Lighting, design changes, staffing, reporting channels, and targeted services should be combined to make streets and transport visibly safer for women.³³⁷
10. Guarantee safe, flexible, and predictable work: Labour standards should promote safe workplaces, predictable schedules, and genuine flexibility so women are not penalised for caregiving.^338,339
11. Use social protection to reduce GBV and strengthen agency: Well-designed cash transfers and cash-plus programmes can reduce intimate-partner violence and strengthen women’s agency when GBV risks are explicitly considered.^340,341
12. Protect sexual and reproductive health and rights as an economic enabler: Ensuring access to contraception and SRHR services supports girls’ education, women’s employment, and better demographic and economic outcomes.^342,343
13. Build the girls-to-STEM skills pipeline and remove institutional barriers: Policies should expand girls’ access to STEM education and address workplace barriers so women can enter and stay in high-growth STEM sectors.^344,345

Education & skills

1. Put foundational literacy and numeracy first using structured-pedagogy packages (simple, scripted lesson guides + matching materials + ongoing teacher support): Early grades should use full structured-pedagogy packages – materials, routines, and assessments – to raise basic literacy and numeracy. This bundle consistently lifts early reading/math at low cost across many education systems.^346,347
2. Replace one-off workshops with ongoing, in-class teacher support built around coaching and data use: Teacher development should centre on ongoing coaching and data use in classrooms, not isolated workshops with little link to practice.^348,349,350
3. Use targeted instruction and tutoring so lagging students can catch up: Teaching-at-the-right-level blocks and high-dosage small-group tutoring help lagging students catch up when implemented with reliable attendance and monitoring.^351,352
4. Back school meals and basic health as learning infrastructure: Daily school meals and basic health interventions, including WASH, should be treated as core learning infrastructure, especially in food-insecure settings.³⁵³
5. Adopt edtech that complements teaching, not devices-first programs: Edtech investments should prioritise curriculum-aligned content, adaptive practice, and assessment dashboards embedded in teaching, rather than hardware rollouts alone.^354,355
6. Make career guidance systematic from lower-secondary with repeated employer encounters: Starting in lower-secondary, students should receive regular employer encounters, labour-market information, and work experience through structured career guidance.³⁵⁶
7. Strengthen work-based learning and apprenticeships linked to curricula: Apprenticeships and work-based learning need firm partnerships, clear training standards, and recognised certification to improve youth employment outcomes.³⁵⁷
8. Use Recognition of Prior Learning and modular, stackable credentials for adults: Recognition of Prior Learning and stackable modules let adults and informal workers convert experience into recognised qualifications over time.^358,359
9. Tie public funding to outcomes and publish employment metrics while protecting access: Funding for TVET and short-cycle tertiary should be partly linked to completion and employment outcomes, with safeguards for disadvantaged learners.³⁶⁰
10. Run regular national assessments and participate in PISA/TIMSS with real classroom follow-through: National and international assessments should feed directly into teacher support and school planning, not remain as standalone scorecards.³⁶¹

Health

1. Use updated WHO “Best Buys” and new “Quick Buys” as the NCD policy spine: Countries should centre NCD strategies on WHO Best Buys and complementary Quick Buys to focus on interventions with proven impact and value.^362,363
2. Eliminate industrial trans-fat with best-practice regulation and verification: Industrial trans-fat should be removed completely through REPLACE-style regulation and monitoring, given strong evidence of avoidable cardiovascular deaths.^364,365
3. Cut population salt intake through mandatory sodium targets and reformulation. High sodium is a dominant blood-pressure risk and comprehensive national programs are now best practice. Mandatory sodium targets for foods, paired with reformulation and communication, are among the most effective ways to reduce hypertension at scale.³⁶⁶
4. Encourage reduced salt usage and potassium-enriched salt substitution, particularly for high-risk individuals. Countries such as the Maldives consume multiple times the daily recommended amount of salt, as well as relatively little potassium-containing foods in day-to-day diets.^{367,368,369,370}
5. Make front-of-pack nutrition labels mandatory and interpretive: Simple, mandatory, interpretive front-of-pack labels help consumers and drive reformulation more effectively than complex numeric systems.³⁷¹
6. Raise tobacco taxes and fully implement MPOWER. Tobacco excise is one of the highest-yield health policies. Strong tobacco taxes and full MPOWER implementation reduce smoking, generate revenue, and strongest health benefits accrued to lower-income households.^372,373,374
7. Scale protocolized primary-care management of hypertension and diabetes via HEARTS and PEN: Primary care should use standardised HEARTS/PEN protocols, team-based care, and fixed-dose combinations to improve hypertension and diabetes control.^375,376
8. Update essential-medicine and diagnostics lists in line with WHO model lists: National formularies should align with WHO Model Lists, including newer diabetes treatments where cost-effective, to improve access and guideline consistency.³⁷⁷
9. Integrate mental health into primary care using mhGAP and stepped care: Stepped-care mhGAP models embedded in primary care and communities are key to closing mental-health treatment gaps.^378,379,380
10. Pursue cervical-cancer elimination with one-dose HPV vaccination and HPV testing: High-coverage one-dose HPV vaccination plus HPV-testing-based screen-and-treat programmes can feasibly put cervical cancer on an elimination path.^381,382,383
11. Strengthen financial protection for UHC by expanding pooled prepayment and reducing OOPs: UHC reforms must expand pooled prepayment and reduce out-of-pocket payments so coverage gains do not come with rising financial hardship.³⁸⁴
12. Tighten antimicrobial stewardship and surveillance with AWaRe targets and GLASS: National AMR plans should include AWaRe-based antibiotic-use targets and systematic GLASS reporting on resistance and antibiotic consumption.^385,386
13. Build climate-resilient, clean-air health services with heat-health plans and ventilation standards: Health systems need heat-health plans and modern ventilation/filtration standards in facilities to manage climate and airborne-disease risks.^387,388

Tourism

1. Develop a destination stewardship plan led by a strengthened DMO and benchmark it against GSTC: Tourism strategies should start from a GSTC-benchmarked stewardship plan that gives the DMO a mandate beyond marketing to managing impacts.^389,390
2. Manage visitor pressure with reservations, caps, pricing, and zoning tied to conservation: High-pressure sites should use reservations, daily caps, peak pricing, and zoning so visitor numbers align with conservation and local tolerance.^391,392,393
3. Adopt “nature-positive” tourism with MPAs, user fees, reef-safe operations, and mooring buoys: Nature-positive tourism combines strong MPAs, well-designed user fees, and reef-safe practices to protect biodiversity while sustaining visitor revenue.^394,395,396
4. Treat wastewater, plastics, and nutrient runoff as tourism-critical infrastructure issues: Tourism hubs must invest in sewage, stormwater, and solid-waste systems to avoid degrading the very coastal assets they sell.^397,398
5. Facilitate travel through smart visas and resilient air and sea links: E-visas, visa-on-arrival for low-risk markets, and resilient connectivity are central to tourism growth and shock recovery.^399,400
6. Price tourism to fund stewardship via transparent levies and conservation fees: Visitor levies and conservation fees should be transparently set and locally retained to finance management, communities, and infrastructure.⁴⁰¹
7. Grow local value-capture via supplier-linkage programs and public-private-community partnerships: Supplier-linkage programmes and PPCPs help hotels and operators buy more from local farmers, fishers, and artisans, reducing leakages.^402,403
8. Invest in workforce quality and decent work across the tourism sector: Tourism policy should invest in skills, RPL, and decent work standards to tackle shortages, raise quality, and improve job conditions.^404,405
9. Codify marine recreation safety using the 2023 IMO Diving Code and sector standards: Diving and marine tourism regulations should align with the 2023 IMO Diving Code and recognised operator standards to reduce accidents.⁴⁰⁶
10. Build a Tourism Satellite Account and use SF-MST to track sustainability: Tourism Satellite Accounts plus SF-MST indicators let governments track tourism’s economic, environmental, and social footprint systematically.^407,408 Supplement with alternative data sources for a complete picture.⁴⁰⁹
11. Plan for climate and shocks through crisis management and coastal resilience: Tourism strategies must include crisis plans, climate-risk assessments, and coastal-resilience investments to cut downtime after shocks.^410,411

Entrepreneurship & SME/MSME policy

1. Make firm entry and operations low-friction and pro-competition: Simplified, digital business procedures and pro-competition regulation, benchmarked with B-READY and PMR, are foundations for a dynamic SME sector.^412,413
2. Design public credit-guarantee schemes for additionality and sustainability: CGSs should be targeted, risk-priced, data-rich, and independently governed so they crowd in SME lending without hidden fiscal burdens.^414,415
3. Enable movable-asset lending, e-invoicing, and data-driven credit: Modern secured-transactions frameworks plus e-invoicing and data-driven scoring let banks and fintech companies lend against movable assets and cash flows.^416,417
4. Tackle late payments and open procurement to SMEs: Stricter payment-term rules and SME-friendly procurement design improve cash flow and open public contracts as growth opportunities.^418,419
5. Invest in capability upgrading with hands-on support and market access: Intensive, tailored management support linked to buyers and finance delivers larger SME growth impacts than classroom training alone.^420,421
6. Support SME digitalisation (including responsible AI) with tools, skills, and adoption grants: Advisory services, skills support, and small adoption grants help SMEs adopt digital and AI tools while managing cybersecurity and bias risks.^422,423,424
7. Use export-readiness and promotion instruments to unlock first sales abroad: Bundled export-readiness services focused on real deals help SMEs make and sustain their first entries into foreign markets.^425,426
8. Be selective with startup and innovation instruments and link support to milestones and networks: Fewer, well-governed incubators, accelerators, and grants tied to milestones and networks outperform many generic startup schemes.^427,428
9. Build clusters and supplier-development around anchor buyers: Cluster programmes organised around anchor buyers align skills, finance, and infrastructure with real demand, helping SMEs upgrade.^429,430
10. Calibrate SME-targeted tax regimes to avoid “small-firm traps.” Simplified SME tax regimes should avoid sharp thresholds and encourage growth, record-keeping, and formalisation, not permanent smallness.^431,432
11. Hard-wire evaluation and accountability into SME policy: SME programmes should carry built-in evaluation, cost tracking, and sunset clauses so resources shift toward interventions that actually work.^433,434

Labour, employment and entrepreneurship

1. Prioritise proven active labour market policies (ALMPs) suited to context: ALMP portfolios should emphasise employment services and vacancy-linked training, which show stronger results than generic training or untargeted entrepreneurship schemes.^{435,436,437,438}
2. Modernise public employment services (PES) with profiling, digital self-service, and strong employer services: Modern PES segment jobseekers by risk, offer digital self-service for many, and treat employers as core clients for matching.^439,440
3. Use wage subsidies and hiring credits sparingly, tied to net job creation and time-bound: Wage subsidies should be tightly targeted, temporary, and monitored for net job creation to justify their fiscal cost.^441,442
4. Set and review minimum wages with evidence-based commissions using clear criteria and regular adjustments help minimum wages raise earnings with limited employment loss, calibrating to median wages and local monopsony/market power.^443,444,445
5. Strengthen labour inspection and OSH enforcement using data and targeted campaigns: Data-driven, risk-based labour inspection combining advice and sanctions is essential to improve OSH compliance and cut injuries.^446,447,448
6. Tackle informality with better services plus credible enforcement: Informality strategies must mix improved benefits and services for formal workers with simplified regimes and stronger enforcement, not tax cuts alone.^449,450,451
7. Promote fair recruitment and safe worker mobility, especially for migrants: Recruitment frameworks should follow ILO fair-recruitment principles so workers, particularly migrants, are not charged fees or trapped in abuse. Clear international standards reduce debt bondage risks and disputes, and support ethical supply chains. “Employer pays” model, licensing of recruiters, joint liability, and standard contracts, no worker-paid fees, transparent contracts, effective licensing and enforcement.⁴⁵²
8. Bolster labour-market competition by limiting non-competes and restrictive agreements. Restricting unjustified non-competes and no-poach agreements raises worker mobility and wages without undermining innovation where other IP tools exist.⁴⁵³
9. Scale employer-led apprenticeships and dual-type programs for youth: Apprenticeships designed and co-financed with employers, with strong workplace components, improve youth transitions into decent jobs.^454,455
10. Align entrepreneurship and SME policy with labour goals: Entrepreneurship and SME programmes should integrate finance, managerial support, and digital skills to generate good-quality jobs, not just firm counts.^{456,457,458,459}
11. Align skills policy with reallocation toward green jobs and digital transition, combining rapid job-matching with short modular reskilling/trainings tied to job vacancies with secured employer commitments.⁴⁶⁰

Fisheries and marine resources

1. Put harvest strategies and EBFM at the core: Fisheries should be managed through explicit harvest strategies within ecosystem-based frameworks that account for habitats, bycatch, and climate.^{461,462,463,464}
2. Eliminate harmful capacity-enhancing subsidies and align support with management: Fuel and vessel subsidies that drive overcapacity should be phased out, with support redirected to management, monitoring, and communities.⁴⁶⁵
3. Tighten MCS against IUU fishing using port-state measures, EM, and traceability: Robust port controls, electronic monitoring, vessel tracking, and traceability systems are needed to deter IUU fishing and protect legal fleets.^{466,467,468,469,470}
4. Support co-management and secure access/tenure for small-scale fisheries: Granting small-scale fishers secure access and roles in co-management improves compliance, stock status, and community benefits.^471,472,473
5. Use spatial tools where they work: Well-designed and enforced no-take MPAs and dynamic closures can rebuild stocks and reduce bycatch when properly enforced and informed by data.^{474,475,476,477}
6. Implement systematic bycatch mitigation and handling protocols: Gear and bait changes plus proper handling protocols can substantially cut turtle, seabird, shark, and marine-mammal bycatch and mortality.^478,479
7. Manage FADs for tropical tunas using science-based limits and better designs: Science-based limits, non-entangling biodegradable FADs, and tracking requirements are essential to reduce juvenile catches and marine litter.^480,481
8. Make fisheries “climate-ready” by updating reference points and management cycles: Harvest rules and reference points must be revised to reflect shifting productivity and distributions under climate change.^482,483
9. Push tuna RFMOs to adopt management procedures and harmonise EM and observer standards: Regional tuna bodies should adopt full stock-wide management procedures and common monitoring standards to secure sustainability and fair access.⁴⁸⁴
10. Build disease-secure, low-impact aquaculture to meet demand and relieve pressure on wild stocks. Well-sited, bio-secure farms with responsible feed and antimicrobial stewardship can supply more seafood with lower biodiversity impact than poorly managed expansion.^485,486

Agriculture and food security

1. Keep food trade open, diversified, and fast with modern SPS and biosecurity. Food-importing states should keep trade open and diversified while using digital, risk-based SPS systems (e.g. ePhyto) to manage plant and animal health. Cut time/costs at borders; digitize SPS; use risk-based controls; coordinate regionally on procurement and emergency access.^{487,488,489,490,491}
2. Use blue foods as a nutrition-dense, low-land pathway: Sustainably managed aquaculture, small pelagic fish, and seaweed can deliver nutrient-rich food with limited land and freshwater use.^492,493,494
3. Scale protected and controlled-environment production for perishables, paired with water solutions to boost local supply of vegetables and fruits in land-scarce islands. Use hydroponics/aeroponics, shade houses, and micro-irrigation to supply greens, herbs, and some fruits; prioritize energy- and water-efficient designs; pilot solar-powered desalination or brackish-water reuse where feasible.^{495,496,497,498}
4. Cut food loss with island-appropriate cold chains and inter-island logistics: Solar cold rooms, pack-houses, and better inter-island shipping often reduce food loss more cheaply than boosting production.^499,500,501
5. Make healthy diets the default using fortification, labelling, SSB taxes, and school feeding. Fortification, front-of-pack labels, sugary-drink taxes, and school feeding shift diets toward healthier foods more effectively than information alone.^{502,503,504,505}
6. Build shock-responsive social protection and strategic reserves sized for islands: Small, well-managed strategic reserves plus shock-responsive cash or voucher schemes help buffer island households from food-price and supply shocks. Systematic and multi-country reviews find cash transfers as more cost-effective and as good as in-kind for food security outcomes.^506,507,508
7. Strengthen biosecurity and regional plant and animal-health systems: Investments in diagnostics, surveillance, and regional plant and animal-health cooperation are critical to prevent invasive pests and diseases.^509,510
8. Support urban and household food production where land is scarce: Rooftop, container, and household food production can modestly improve diet diversity and resilience if supported with water, inputs, and extension.^511,512,513