Pacific Plan Action Committee convenes
PRESS STATEMENT 67/08
July 21, 2008 PACIFIC PLAN ACTION COMMITTEE CONVENES The first in the series of regional officials' meetings held in preparation for the 39th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Summit (Niue, 19-21 August 2008) convened today in Suva, Fiji. Meeting over the next two days at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat is the Pacific Plan Action Committee (PPAC), comprising senior government representatives from 16 Forum Members, Associate Members, and heads of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) agencies and Pacific Territories. Key issues to be discussed by the Committee include progress to date on implementation of the Forum Leaders' "2007 Vava'u Decisions on the Pacific Plan" and proposed future priorities for the region. "The first day will provide a retrospective look over the year’s progress in implementing the Pacific Plan and efforts to support greater regional cooperation and integration," said Acting Secretary General of the Forum Secretariat, Feleti Teo. Mr Teo added PPAC will also be considering progress made to date in implementing the Leaders’ decisions as they relate to the region’s institutional architecture*. "The second day of the PPAC meeting will be prospective in nature and deal with areas for priority implementation over 2009 and beyond," said Mr Teo. "These are drawn from last year’s Vava’u Decisions and look to build on the work undertaken over 2007 and 2008 to offer continuity and acknowledge that many of the issues the region faces are ongoing and long-term in nature." PPAC is responsible for oversight of Pacific Plan implementation, carried out at the regional level by CROP agencies and donors, and at the national level by Forum Member governments. The Pacific Plan draws attention to four key areas of Economic Growth, Sustainable Development, Good Governance and Security, and was endorsed by Leaders at their 2005 Summit in Papua New Guinea. (Ends) * Note to editors: Regional Institutional Framework (RIF) Review Forum Leaders have, for several years, been investigating the options of improving existing regional institutional arrangements to best support the implementation of the Pacific Plan, and greater regional cooperation and integration to achieve better standards in service delivery for Pacific countries. Forum Leaders at their October 2006 meeting held in Nadi, Fiji, considered recommendations of reorganising of regional institutions under three pillars, the first focusing on political and general policy, the second a sector-focused technical institution and the third, academic and training organisations. At their meeting in October 2007, Forum Leaders agreed, among other things, to: (a) the inclusion of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) in Pillar 1, along with the Forum Secretariat, in order to recognise the Agency’s central regional role and to provide fisheries issues with the political profile they require; (b) the need to rationalise the functions of the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) with the work programmes of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) with the view to absorbing those functions of SOPAC into SPC and SPREP; (c) the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment (SPBEA) merging into SPC; and (d) the University of the South Pacific (USP) and the Fiji School of Medicine forming part of Pillar 3 (Education). |
2008