Forum First and Last, Urwin Told

Goodbye to the old and hello to the new...Outgoing Forum secretary-general Noel Levi and new Forum chair New Zealand¹s Helen Clark.

That was the premise Pacific leaders issued the Secretary-General elect at the conclusion of the 34th Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland.

"You are now coming to take up this key post, you must focus your approach on making sure that the focus of the developmental aspects of the region remains the priority and not Australia's programmes," Urwin was told.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Saufatu Sopoanga shares the sentiments of his Forum colleagues, but acknowledges the heavy reliance on New Zealand and Australia for developmental assistance in the region‹more so in recent years.

His country is one of the smaller island states buckling under the impact of rising sea levels and climate changes.

It is evident and it is serious enough that industrialised nations and even the region should continue to make a strong stand in the statements they are making.

These statements can only take effect if the region can stand together and give support and justification in our proposals to the bigger industrialised countries.

Tuvalu's capital, Funafuti, which holds half the country's population, is seriously affected by rising sea and ground water levels, killing the island's main staple diet, taro.

We must stand as a block if we are to be happy on our recommendations, otherwise individually Tuvalu cannot do anything about it.

"But we are pushing what we see as requirements to be put in place to counter the effects of climate change into our adaptation programmes being drawn up through the help of SPREP," Sopoanga said.

But we still need the region, we still need the bigger islands countries like Fiji and Tonga's support for sourcing and obtaining finance for these programmes because these adaptation programmes are not going to provide the finances.

They just contain projects which would through their implementation attempt to counter the effects of climate change. We still have to find the money and we need to stand together and have an impact and provide proper justification to the bigger financial institutions.

While he welcomes New Zealand's access category allowing a quota of 75 people each year to New Zealand, Sopoanga does not encourage it. He fears his country might suffer the same consequences as Niue.

"The concern is that we should have more people and we must work hard to produce more people. We need our workforce for the government in Tuvalu. Although we are happy there is a scheme which allows Tuvaluans to participate in, we do not want to encourage it."

Sopoanga's government is currently a minority party holding seven members as opposed to eight after the defection of a recently elected candidate. Parliament has been deferred to November.

I still have confidence that one or two people will cross the floor and will in time come around. While we may be working against democracy, we are not working against the constitution.

We have an arrangement there and a precedent has been set in the past where a similar situation had arisen for the government of the day.

On my part it was most unfair to allow this situation to arise where after a by-election, the successful candidate that came in decided to cross the floor. The government has been in power for six months and even up till now, there is no reason to allow parliament to sit only to be changed over to the other side because of the numbers.

"I think we must allow for the period that the constitution is allowing when we can then allow the course of parliament to sit and then prove that the numbers are still there."

Tuvalu received an allocation of Euro 3.97 million under the European Union Financing Agreement to improve standards of living in the outer islands, provide better school facilities and improve water supplies.