Getting With The Programme

Around this time last year, readers may recall that much of the world's attention was focused on South Africa, where the World Summit for Sustainable Development was being held.

The positive news resulting from the four billion dollar summit, was an agreement by the international community of "special case status for both environment and development" for all small islands developing states or SIDS.

The summit also called for a review of the BPoA (Barbados Programme of Action), which is basically a guide to maintaining the quality of our islands lifestyles, and making sure we can sustain these in the future. The review is scheduled for an international meeting that will be held in Mauritius next year, marking a decade from when the programme first began. Reports coming through to SPREP, which is playing a coordinating role here, indicates that the programme's overall implementation is far from complete. There are some major tasks ahead before sustainable development can become a reality for all of these islands communities.

On the ground, preparations for the Pacific's contribution to the Mauritius gathering are already in hand. These are being led by a talented cast of key players from Pacific governments, the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) agencies and civil groups. These people recently met in Samoa to address the 14 priority areas within the BoPA and to measure the success or shortfalls of the programme in our own islands state members and territories. Like other similarly sized countries around the world, the meeting maintained the premise that the Pacific Islands are vulnerable on a number of fronts.

Some of these are unique to our part of the world such as our traditional system of land tenure, population variance, climate change impacts, water shortages, and economies of scale.

Moreover, Pacific Islanders still lead largely subsistence lifestyles, whereby we depend directly on our natural resources, traditional knowledge and the ability to improvise as best as we can. When our former colonial masters arrived, they planted the seeds of what are today's market-driven cash economies, 40-hour working weeks and rapid technological changes. Compounding the situation is that many Pacific islands have natural resources that are highly sought after on international markets. Our tuna stocks and exotic timbers for example, are at the mercy of powerful commercial enterprises, that could hardly be described as the most environmentally-friendly, or development-minded business partners.

Collectively delegates felt that we must be strong of will, and persist in the search for other avenues to increase our quality of life without degrading our natural and human resources.

One such avenue is for the region to make a real commitment to this Barbados Programme of Action. In getting with the programme, this meeting outlined ideas they believe can improve the chances of rising to the challenges the Pacific Islands are facing.

It was agreed there was a need for improved regional cooperation, and more integration between governments and civil groups, villages and communities.

Communicating our ideas clearly may go some way to achieving this. With the current political difficulties across some of our region, environmental degradation will only escalate, as a result of prior concerns and shrinking budgets. As self respecting Pacific Islands countries and territories, we must make every effort to pay our own way, by endeavouring to use whatever resources are available in a prudent, responsible manner. This can only work by vigorously pursuing good governance and total transparency at all levels.

For all those attending, it was obvious that the concerns of our region will need to feature prominently at the Mauritius meeting, where we will be competing for attention and funding from all quarters.

The United Nations has been supporting this endeavour through its SIDS Unit, but technical and financial aid has also been received from the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific, both the United Nations Development and Environment Programmes, UNESCO and the New Zealand Government.

In Samoa, there is a saying that " We are friends everyday, but we are brothers and sisters on bad days". The Apia meeting was an important opportunity to discuss many issues relating to Pacific Islands communities and to prepare a regional overview of the various needs of the region.

I wish all the delegates who made this meeting such a constructive and meaningful event, continued success in the lead-up to Mauritius next year.