Qarase's Wake Up Call To Regional Organizations

In session... Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations meeting in Suva.

Delegates to the Pacific Community Conference, especially speech writers from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) got a shock from Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. Why? ONE: Qarase did not stick to the speech prepared for him by the SPC and already circulated before he delivered his opening address in Suva.

TWO: Qarase instead said there were too many regional organisations that have mushroomed in the past 20 years. There was a need to co-ordinate and rationalise them. This is because membership of regional and international organisations and various international treaties and conventions was hitting already meagre financial and human resources of member countries. Sources close to the Fiji Government said the speech prepared by the SPC was considered boring and irrelevant to the real issues delegates needed to face. So the only issue Qarase retained from the SPC version was on HIV/AIDS.

BUREAUCRACIES Qarase's subsequent call to cut back on the proliferation of regional organisations and meetings might have been controversial. But it is timely and definitely food for thought for all those many regional organisations and their bureaucracies. Let's look at the SPC (Pacific Community) itself. At its conference in Suva a disturbing trend regarding members' contributions was revealed. A report tabled showed that at the end of 2003, the total arrears of members' assessed contributions was more than double what it was 10 years ago. It is almost as high as that recorded in 1999, when the SPC reforms were supposed to be kicking in. That's not all. At least five member countries have arrears accumulating more than a year: Nauru as far back as 1997; Guam (which must be a personal embarrassment to SPC director-general Lourdes Pangelinan) since 1998; Solomons since 2000; and Marshalls and Northern Marianas since 2001.

This situation only serve to highlight the difficulties member countries experience in trying to meet their regional and international obligations. Especially the smaller countries with smaller budgets.

QUESTIONS Even Fiji, considered to be better off than most countries in the region, is seriously looking at the issues and raising questions. Is there a need for so many regional organisations, with their proliferation of well-paid, well-travelled, often non-Pacific Islander secretariats? As PM Qarase said: We need to consider, for instance, whether it represents an efficient use of scarce development resources.

Our citizens would be justified in asking why more and more of our scarce national budget resources are being diverted to these regional and international bureaucracies. The observation has been made previously that they seem to be an industry unto themselves.

The never-ending stream of meetings and conferences produced by these organisations consumes millions of dollars‹but to what purpose?

"Obviously, some meetings are critical and should be attended. But I suspect a close analysis would reveal that many achieve very little and that the follow-up is minimal. Would it not be better to spend this money on projects that will directly improve the quality of life of the ordinary people in our countries?"

ROBUST DEBATE These remarks will not go down well in the well-paid, well-travelled regional organisation bureaucracies across the region. But as Qarase rightly said, they needed to be raised because a robust debate about the issues will serve the public interest.

Qarase already has an ally in Tuvalu's prime minister Saufatu Sopoanga. He said: "I agree with Fiji's Prime Minister that there are too many regional bodies taking care of these things in the region. There's this Tuna Commission, for example, adding on to what we already have. I mean some wonder why a department of FFA (Forum Fisheries Agency) could not just take care of the Tuna Commission's responsibilities. Some of these new organisations are due to the influence of metropolitan countries. If you trace discussions on the Tuna Commission, you will see that the suggestion for its setting up came from these countries, not from us in the islands." Qarase's message is simple but important. The more we create, the more obligations we create for ourselves. The more we put pressure on our already stretched financial and human resources.

REVIEW The national leaders who control the region's premier regional organisation, the Pacific Islands Forum, already have a review underway of its secretariat and its work. Qarase is himself setting an example in cost cutting and priorities in travel.

He is not going to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria this month with his full prime ministerial travel team. Instead, he is sending a much smaller team led by his respected and capable Foreign Minister, Kaliopate Tavola, to represent Fiji.

It's a message those highly paid and constantly travelling types in the regional organisation bureaucracies and meetings "industry" should heed.