High Tide
High Tide
Can The Forum Learn New Steps?
When the Pacific Island Forum leaders in October endorsed the "Pacific Plan" in Papua New Guinea, they also opened the door to a rethinking of how island nations collectively deal with their "development partners."
In his debriefing to diplomats, officials and politicians from the Pacific Forum Dialogue Partners, Forum Secretary General Greg Urwin flagged a review of the dialogue-partner criteria and arrangements "to see whether we're all getting as much as we can out of it" -the inference clearly being that no party is.
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This is something most of these partners will welcome. While the post-Forum meetings are a good place to get a quick update, shake hands and hand over checks, the series of two-hour meetings are not so good for getting real work done.
There are 13 Post Forum dialogue partners: the United Kingdom, European Union, Malaysia, USA, People's Republic of China, Thailand, India, Canada, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, France, Japan and Philippines. Waiting in the wings is Israel and others apparently.
In his post-mortem of the meeting Urwin said "the level of representation is gratifying in terms of the seriousness of the work we do." Thailand's high level representitive, Deputy Prime Minister, Surakiart Sathirathai said his country believes in "south -south cooperation."
He also talked about the possibilities of institutional links with ASEAN. This is something that resonates with the many Pacific Island leaders who would prefer to "look north" rather than always over their shoulders at Australia and New Zealand.
Urwin told the Post-Forum Dialogue Partners that the Forum leaders were keen to see the Secretariat explore market access with development partners.
The European Union, the second biggest donor to the region, was represented by Anders Henriksson, who said implementation of the Pacific Plan "will be a symptom of maturity in the region…and gives us a basis to see where we can be helpful."
Forum members will be hoping that helpfulness extends to the ongoing negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement. ACP Secretary General Sir John Kaputin warned the Forum that negotiations need to "shift up another gear" and that he is "very concerned about the future relationship between the EU and the ACP (African Caribbean Pacific) countries."
The Forum is no doubt giving some thought to its relationship with France as New Caledonia and French Polynesia prepare to attend next year's Tonga meeting as Associate Members. French Polynesia President Oscar Temaru told his fellow leaders that he has been sitting by the sideline "for too many long years, watching the Pacific waka sailing by," and that he attended this year's meeting "with a fair amount of emotion." France is watching this unfold with quite different emotions, diplomat Anne Boquet even suggesting that the Associate membership was not a foregone conclusion, although it is hard to see how it could be otherwise.
Let's face it; the financial support of the development partners will be crucial to the longer term implementation of a Pacific Plan. China is clearly on board; in Papua New Guinea the government pledged US$2 million to finance projects under the Pacific Plan and again floated its plans for a China Pacific Economic Forum.
The United States pledged US$1.5 million for a Pacific Anti-Money Laundering Program which among other things will provide "mentors" (aka consultants) in various technical fields, and which broadly fits under the security section of the Pacific Plan.
Our leaders, the implementers, all of us who will be in some way be affected by the plan - which is still a work in progress- need to have the discussioin. Is the plan an opportunity for greater regionalism in the way we deal with our neighbors and donors- to complement rather than undermine bilateral relationships? Is it an opportunity to increasingly shape these relationships to a regional design - to take the initiative - rather than waiting with hand outstretched for whatever is sent our way? We think it is.
