Environment
Meeting For The Future
This month I have been invited to the Finance and Economic Ministers Meeting (FEMM) in the Marshall Islands.
Events such as these are a daily part of my job, but this FEMM meeting is particularly interesting because it discusses some exciting possibilities about the future of the region's environmental and economic well being.
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Since the early 1990s, it has become plain that many factors will be involved in any effort to conserve our natural resources to guarantee the survival of future generations. Top of the list is the way we use or abuse these resources, as this has a major bearing on a community's potential to create future economic opportunities.
Pacific communities have recognised that to achieve sustainable development means handling environmental and economic approaches more astutely. To do so, FEMM and SPREP are proposing to look at ways for environmental and economic development to work in tandem, or to use the industry term, to "mainstream" the work.
For the uninitiated, the general idea behind mainstreaming is to merge as far as practical, environmental, social and economic policies, and provide enabling platforms within government for sustainable development.
A specific scenario is to do with regional economics. A great number of families living in the Pacific today, or developing countries in general, face daily struggles to feed their children, provide for their basic needs, or to save any money.
With the world in its current state of turbulence, this scenario can only change if we do something soon to fix the negative influences.
It is understood that even if we put in place mechanisms that will require an immediate change in attitude, it will still take time for our communities to see tangible benefits. Perseverance is essential.
In some countries, the competing needs of economic development and maintaining a healthy environment has led to poor decision-making, economic impoverishment and social instability. The unsustainable rate of logging in several Pacific countries and the decline of phosphate in Nauru are cases in point.
The FEMM gathering is a further step towards a serious regional effort to mainstream effectively. Getting to this point has been somewhat prolonged, given that Environment Ministers have been requesting action in this domain since their 1993 regional meeting. This was again brought to the fore at the 1996 Tonga meeting.
At about this time, the Economic and Trade Ministers of the region asked for better integration of economic and environmental development.
In response, the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) has through its programmes, provided a regional governance platform to improve capacity building in this area. For SPREP, this led to the creation of a Sustainable Economic Development Unit as one of our five key result areas.
Although I was not in attendance, last year's 13th SPREP Meeting in the Marshall Islands saw the invitation and attendance of the FEMM chair (and Vanuatu Finance Minister) Sela Molisa to the Ministerial Meeting on "Environment and Development".
Delegates were impressed by his comments on the need for mutual action at the regional and national levels.
Mr Molisa spoke of the need for those working in the fiscal arms of government, to acquire a keener perspective of the environment, and to apply that knowledge base to economic and fiscal planning and policy, for the betterment of the regional community.
I agree that there are many other requirements such as the ability to prioritise policy choices, which address long-term economic and environmental needs, and better means for coordinated policy, administration and on-the-ground practices.
Naturally, no headway can be achieved unless sound information for economic and environment agencies is available, when deciding on the best competing choices in a balanced matter.
There is still some way to travel before the vision FEMM and this organisation have for mainstreaming of the environment and economics is fully realised. So we need to keep our lines of communications open and focus on the task at hand.
Finally, getting to where we want to be with all this requires the commitment and responsibility of everyone. As that well-known African proverb says, "None of us is as smart as all of us".
I thank FEMM for their invitation, especially the opportunity to meet and share ideas with so many experts in the economics and finance field.
In September, the SPREP Secretariat looks forward to hosting the FEMM chairperson at the 14th SPREP meeting in Apia. There, we can perhaps continue our discussions with our country representatives, and guide environment and economics a little further along the mainstream path.
Asterio Takesy is the director of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme and is based in Apia, Samoa.
