Pacific Islands Forum Summit
Date: 16 Oct 2007
Speaker: Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon
Location: Tonga
Hon. Prime Minister Dr Sevele,
Your Excellencies,
Secretary-General Urwin,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
On behalf of the Commonwealth, I congratulate Prime Minister Sevele on assuming the Chairmanship of the Forum.
I also extend my thanks to Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare for having guided and represented the region this year. I congratulate him on his recent re-election as Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
I am honoured to address you at this, my 6th and final Forum Summit as Commonwealth Secretary-General, although I have been attending these events now for 17 years.
I am tempted to say, “your Commonwealth Secretary-General.” Because, while I represent 53 nations, that will never diminish my commitment to my home region, which I know so well and which has supported me so resolutely.
On one side of the coin, about one fifth of the Commonwealth’s members are in the Pacific and sit around this table today. On the other side of the coin, over half of the members of the Pacific Forum belong to the Commonwealth. Either way, the Commonwealth has a stake in a democratic and prosperous Pacific.
Your challenges here in so many ways mirror Commonwealth challenges on four other continents and in two other oceans.
They are the challenges of remote small states seeking to combine democratic stability with economic growth, with limited resources to do so.
The Commonwealth walks alongside you in meeting those challenges.
Mr Chairman, the Pacific’s future lies in the Pacific’s hands. And the Pacific Plan is the best possible roadmap. Our role is to support the Plan and to support you in the areas where we have most to offer.
Our new five-year Commonwealth Pacific Governance Programme has been designed with you and for you. It starts next year and we are looking now for partner funding. And we are serious, to the extent that we are putting in US$2 million from the outset ourselves. We are also going to place a project manager at the Forum Secretariat who should start work in January.
The results of that Programme, at national and regional levels, will be better public access to information; stronger democratic institutions; better ways of fighting corruption and improving transparency; and stronger ways of addressing land ownership and land usage.
Governance is just one of the building-blocks of democracy. So are elections and the electoral bodies which support them. I am pleased that we have continued the tradition of working with the Forum Secretariat and were able to field one more “joint election observer team” in Papua New Guinea recently.
The rule of law is another building block, but one constraint often faced in your Parliaments is capacity to draft legislation. From the end of this year, we will be running 12-week Commonwealth training courses, so that you can develop local capacity over time to draft your own new laws. The Commonwealth gives us a distinct comparative advantage because of the compatibility of our legal system
Trade is another area where we have continued to help in practical ways. We have lobbied constantly for the conclusion of a Doha Round in which rich countries should give more than they take.
We will continue to lobby, and to provide the technical support to help you negotiate. A Commonwealth expert sits in the Forum Secretariat advising on trade policy as a hub, while others sit as spokes in trade ministries in the capitals of Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.
We are also providing support in your negotiation of the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union. We are helping to formulate your arguments, to argue for a better package of adjustment, to defend against rules on trade in services and investment that go beyond WTO commitments. These are the very concerns I raised in the European Commission and the European Parliament in Brussels last month: we continue to bat for you.
This support comes at almost no price. Our financial assistance has grown by almost two thirds in the last 7 years. Our expenditure in the Pacific will increase to about US$4 million per annum by next year, the highest level in the more-than-40-year history of the Commonwealth Secretariat.
So supporting the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation is a good deal for the Pacific: you contribute 1% of our resources, while we are aiming to spend 20% of our project resources in the region. Collectively, for every $1 that a Pacific Island country pledges to the CFTC, it receives about $8 of assistance in return.
These figures speak for themselves – but I hope too, that you value them enough to increase your contributions to the CFTC. Three of you have done so; eight of you haven’t – you know who you are, so please expect my call!
We also bring in others. We linked up, for instance, with Iceland on a fisheries training project, that has brought skills and other benefits to the region over the last few years and which could now be extended.
But if your Commonwealth membership comes at a modest financial price, it also comes at the larger moral price of international responsibility and accountability. The Commonwealth’s values, and the steps we will take to protect and promote them, mirror those of the Biketawa Declaration.
It is because we are an organisation of values that we have been so concerned about Fiji Islands since the events of last December. As Commodore Bainimarama here will attest, we have not always seen eye-to-eye but we are talking to each other and the Commonwealth is committed to providing assistance that restores democracy and the Commonwealth’s other fundamental principles; helps all Fijians together to address the coup culture once and for all; and that ultimately has the people governing themselves through institutions in which they have full confidence.
The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, CMAG, has met twice since December last year. Fiji and Pakistan have been in a similar position and are the only two countries on the Group’s agenda. At their meeting last month, CMAG Ministers expressed concerns over developments in Fiji and reaffirmed their support for the Pacific Islands Forum’s engagement with Fiji.
In the same spirit of promoting democracy and dialogue, the Commonwealth has been closely following your Review of RAMSI. We will continue to provide support for the democratic institutions of the Solomon Islands, and for reconciliation and dialogue there. Only a few weeks ago, I was in New York where I discussed with the UN the scope to work together in the Solomons to increase the number of international partners there and to ensure that our contributions are coordinated, support the Government, and are coherent with the region’s RAMSI contributions.
The Commonwealth and the Pacific are partners. They are partners in London, where we now have more Pacific Islanders than ever among Secretariat staff, and where we ran a successful Pacific internship programme. And they are partners here in the region.
More work needs to be done to ensure that the Pacific achieves the stability, security, growth and opportunity that its peoples deserve. The Commonwealth will continue to be a trusted partner and friend in realising that vision.
At the end of next month, Commonwealth Heads of Government will meet in Kampala, Uganda. I see several highlights in the offing.
First, a focus on climate change, a reality we cannot escape. Now that the science is better understood, global interest is accelerating. It is a subject on your agenda this week. Commonwealth leaders are likely to add weight and urgency to the UN negotiations and to promote practical support for our member countries. And they will be particularly conscious of the needs of small states, which will have a special session devoted to them by Foreign Ministers in Kampala. As I speak, Commonwealth Finance Ministers are meeting in Guyana to examine the economic aspects of climate change.
Second, a focus on what binds some communities and loosens others. With all our Commonwealth diversity to draw from, we commissioned a report by the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen to look at how to promote inter-communal respect and understanding.
And third, a focus on the theme of the meeting, Transforming Societies – a theme with lessons for all Commonwealth countries about the ways to achieve political, economic and social development, and the complex organic relationships between all three.
So I do believe you will see at CHOGM that the concerns of the Pacific are played out on the world stage, and with benefits coming back to this region as a consequence.
Mr Chairman, I have seen the many economic and other benefits that regional integration and cooperation have brought to other Commonwealth regions. I have also seen the importance of respecting individual nations’ sovereignty and the paths chosen by their people.
In the same way, the Pacific will survive and prosper by being united in its values, in its aspirations and in its actions. Going fishing alone or fishing with others will both bring positive results. Either way, the catch should be shared. But those that fish without thinking of others around them will get their nets and lines tangled, and then no one benefits.
Your challenges will not diminish, but they can be resolved and solved by those who work with the people, drawing on the talents, commitment and enthusiasm of the people.
It has been an honour and privilege to play my part in the Pacific. My job would not have been possible without the strong support and advice I have received from you, the Forum Leaders over the years.
My sincere thanks and very best wishes to you all.
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Pacific Islands Forum Summit
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