SG's speech - Inaugural Pacific Network Meeting, Fiji
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MR GREG URWIN, SECRETARY GENERAL, PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM SECRETARIAT
AT THE INAUGURAL PACIFIC NETWORK MEETING Sigatoka, Fiji, 12 December 2007 “The “Regional Network” of the Pacific Islands Forum” Distinguished representatives, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning. I am very grateful to be so. I thought the most sensible thing to do with the time available to me might be to offer some comment on some of the existing networks in which the Forum is engaged, and to offer one or two thoughts about how value might be added by the enterprise you are launching today. 2. The Forum, as a formal “network” of Pacific Island Leaders was established in August 1971 by seven Pacific Leaders, who chose to take a cooperative approach to some of the challenges that they shared, and to have their own means of doing so. While the Forum has since grown to 16 members, and with increasing interest for others to be Observers, the founding principle has remained the same – how best to develop Pacific Island nations by working more closely with one another. 3. In the thirty six years of its life, the Forum has grown considerably as, I suppose, organisations such as this are inclined to do. It was established primarily because the newly independent countries, and those about to become independent, wanted their own voice, a voice they felt was not being sufficiently provided by the existing regional organisation, the South Pacific Commission, which had been founded in 1947 and which, it was felt at the time, was too dominated by the colonial and former colonial powers. In that regard, it is interesting to note that New Zealand and Australia were founding members of the Forum, but only after a good deal of debate. 4. The Forum’s early focus was on economic cooperation and the potential for development which might be derived from it. The pursuit of that objective is still very much at the core of the Forum’s work, but our agenda now includes a range of political matters and trade, security governance and social issues, many of them, of course, closely inter-related. All of these activities have spawned formal networks of their own, based on a range of devices – Ministerial Meetings, workshops and consultations, regional agreements and understandings, specialised agencies, all of course backed by a broad range of friendship, shared experience – gleaned not least at USP – and occasionally, enmity. 5. About four years ago, we reached a point in the Pacific where our Leaders, faced with an array of challenges – some domestic, some regional, many encapsulated in the word “globalisation”, were looking for a deeper measure of regional cooperation, one which might, in an as yet undetermined way, take us into a fuller regional integration than we now enjoy. To that end they called for the development of what has become known as the Pacific Plan. 6. Essentially, they wanted to test the potential for creating stronger and deeper links among the sovereign countries of the region and identify the sectors where the region could gain the most from sharing resources of governance and aligning policies. Its development during 2004 and 2005 was carried forward by a Task Force comprising senior official representatives from all Forum countries and representatives from regional organisations, with a Core Group of Leaders providing leadership oversight. Development of the Plan was, relative to past practice in the region, underpinned by a quite extensive 12-month consultative process at national level; and input also from regional NSAs and other civil society and private sector organisations, Pacific non-sovereign territories, and development partners. 7. To create awareness of the benefits of regionalism and the Pacific Plan, the Forum Secretariat held seminars at national and regional levels on the broader issues of strengthening regional cooperation, integration and the provision of public goods. That whole consultation process will need to be further developed – there is a predictable but certainly justifiable range of views about its quality thus far – if the Plan is really to become a sustainable integration mechanism, and I dwell on it for a moment now, because it seems to me to be the kind of process which may have a bearing on what we are seeking to explore here. The Plan was adopted by Leaders at their Annual Meeting in Port Moresby in October 2005. 8. With its range of priority initiatives organised around four inter-related goals of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security, the Plan is now in its initial implementation phase – in other words, the hard part. 9. We shall be completing the first three year phase of implementation of the Plan in 2008 and this will involve a quite rigorous analysis of just how much progress we have been making. My own sense is that, overall, a fair start has been made but that we shall need to find the will and the stamina to keep at it for an unforeseeably long period of time. Where is the process taking us? A good and very open question and one not irrelevant, I think to the purpose of this meeting. Just how cohesive may we expect to become as a region, given our diversity, our far-flung nature and our resource limitations? In what sense are we truly a region? Are we so simply so because history and the colonial powers told us we were, or are there enough common interests to bind us in a long-term way? And what will be the nature of the future relationship between the island countries of the South Pacific and Australia and New Zealand and between the North Pacific and the Asian mainland? All of that said, the range and character of the challenges we face does seem to demand that we take the practical opportunities for cooperation as far as we can. We shall simply have to see whether by the accretion of particular measures over time, the regional habit strengthens to the point where the current arrangements, basically voluntary in nature, develop into something more binding. 10. If I may, I will now offer one or two things about some of the issues related mainly to the Good Governance pillar of the Plan which may be of some relevance to what follows in this meeting. 11. The strategic objective of the Forum’s Good Governance work programme is “improved transparency, accountability, equity and efficiency in the management and use of resources in the Pacific”. I think most people would now consider it axiomatic that Good governance is a prerequisite for sustainable development and economic growth, and as outlined in the Vision they adopted when adopting the Pacific Plan, and consistent with its priority initiatives, Forum Leaders are seeking: “a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values and for its defence and promotion of human rights" 12. At last year’s Leaders’ Meeting in Nadi, it was that greater attention be given to implementing Initiatives 12.5 and 12.6 of the Pacific Plan which pertain to human rights and good governance issues. 13. As a way forward to strengthen good governance including human rights in the region, the Pacific Plan identifies a range of initiatives, the most important of which are: • The ratification and implementation of rights-based international and regional conventions and agreements; and support for meeting reporting and other requirements. This work includes: the drafting, harmonisation and promotion of awareness of rights-based domestic legislation within the Pacific to cover a range of international instruments. The Forum Secretariat has been collaborating with a number of organisations to help carry out this initiative; • Support for the regional consolidation of commitments to key institutions such as audit and ombudsmans’ offices, leadership codes, anti-corruption institutions and departments of attorneys general; including through judicial training and education. This set of objectives includes the establishment of: a regional ombudsman and other human rights mechanisms to support the implementation of the Forum’s accountability and leadership principles; a regional audit service to support integrity and oversight; and a regional anti-corruption agency with associated legislation; • Enhancement of governance mechanisms, including in resource management; and in the harmonisation of traditional and modern values and structures. This includes support for the close coordination of existing initiatives, including the University of the South Pacific’s governance institute (Pacific Institute for Advanced Studies in Development and Governance); • The development of a strategy to support participatory democracy and consultative decision-making (which includes Non-State Actors (NSAs), youth, women and disabled). 14. Recent developments have included a region-wide exercise which identified strategies to address some of the issues impeding ratification of core international human rights treaties. In addition the Secretariat’s collaboration with the New Zealand Law Reform Commission, the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights saw the completion of three important research papers on the interface between custom and human rights in the Pacific, forms of national human rights institutions for Pacific states, and the added value of ratification of those human right treaties for those states. 15. These three important pieces of work, all of which are the result of regional consultations, will provide some responses to the issues and obstacles that Forum Island Countries face in meeting the requirements of ratification of core international human rights treaties and the establishment of national human rights institutions. In the meantime, the Secretariat and its partners are facilitating more in-country dialogue on these issues. Resources permitting, we are looking at the establishment of a Human Rights position to consolidate and elevate human rights work in the region. 16. Assistance also continues to be available to Forum Island Countries interested in adopting leadership codes. Members who have yet to do so are encouraged to adopt leadership codes as a means of implementing the Leaders’ commitment to the principles in the Biketawa Declaration and the Forum Principles of Good Leadership adopted by them in 2003. The Secretariat is working with the UNDP Pacific Centre, AusAID and the Australian Ombudsman to undertake investigations into options to support the concept of a regional ombudsman, and a proposed meeting of the region’s ombudsmen next year will hopefully take this forward. Similar work is ongoing in respect of the establishment of a regional audit facility. The Secretariat is also reviewing with the UNDP Pacific Centre further work on sub-regional anti-corruption plans, in the context of the United Nations’ Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC). 17. The Secretariat is also working closely with partners on raising awareness of ethics and accountability issues. Further impetus for this work is expected through the Pacific Leadership Programme (PLP). This is a major initiative arising from the White Paper on the Australian Government aid programme. PLP seeks to: to contribute to improving governance in the region through improving leadership practices emerging at national, local and regional levels. 18. The Programme will be overseen by a Pacific Leadership panel comprised of eminent Pacific Islanders, with AusAID and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Upon its establishment PLP, through a range of delivery organisations in different countries will implement the Programme across the Pacific. The Programme will provide grant funding to individual governments, civil society and other organisations in each country. The initial phase of the Programme will cover Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and East Timor. 19. I should also describe, briefly, some of our recent activities under the rubric of the Biketawa Declaration, because it involves networking at the political top end. At the 2000 Forum Leaders meeting in Kiribati, the Leaders adopted a security framework for the region, named after the location at which it was adopted. The Declaration is basically a mechanism which allows the Forum to come to the assistance of a member country in times of crisis or trouble. It is the first mechanism of its kind in the region, a recognition that the problems of one may be the problems of all. It has been invoked three times since 2000 by the state concerned - by Solomon Islands, and in somewhat different circumstances, by Nauru and by Fiji. 20. In respect of the situation in Fiji, I think it can be said that the Forum has again demonstrated that it can play a constructive leadership role in efforts to resolve crises within our region. Prior to the events of 5 December 2006, the Forum convened a meeting of Forum Ministers, at Fiji’s request, to help address the impasse then existing between the Government and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces. In January, with the agreement of all parties, an Eminent Persons Group visited Fiji. The EPG’s Report was endorsed by Forum Foreign Ministers in March and significantly, has also been used by members of the wider international community as a reference point in formulating their own policy approaches. 21. We are continuing to promote dialogue between Fiji and other Forum members aimed at an early return to parliamentary democracy, through the Forum-Fiji Joint Working Group, a grouping created at the direction of the Foreign Ministers. Practical outcomes of that Working Group, which has met on twenty occasions, have been an independent technical assessment of an election timetable for Fiji and the identification of the resources needed by Fiji to meet that timetable. 22. At the recent Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Tonga, Heads of Government, inter alia: (a) welcomed the undertaking by the Leader of the Fiji Interim Government to the Forum Leaders that a parliamentary election will be held in the first quarter of 2009, and noted that he also stated to Forum Leaders that he and the Republic of Fiji Military Forces will accept the outcome of the elections in the first quarter of 2009; (b) called on the Fiji Interim Government now to work with the Forum-Joint Working Group to produce a credible roadmap to those elections at that time according to the Constitution and laws of Fiji; (c) noted that the Interim Government is pursuing an initiative to produce a People’s Charter; (d) called for a meeting of the Forum Foreign Affairs Ministers early next year to review the progress being made towards the election in the first quarter of 2009. 23. For us now, the next step will be the convening of that Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. We will continue to work in support of Fiji’s efforts to bring its situation to normality. 24. Now all that I’ve said is, I guess, an excessively long winded way of saying that, at the formal, regional level there are a range of networks operating, sometimes inter-locking, sometimes overlapping, but certainly extensive. The obvious question is: how well do they work? What value could be added to them? 25. From the point of view of the work we are doing at the Forum, some of the responses to those questions should become a little more apparent during the course of next year, as we evaluate progress, or otherwise, in the implementation of the initiatives contained in the Pacific Plan. In the interim, let me offer a couple of impressions. 26. So far, the issue that we have contemplated probably more than any other in respect of the Pacific Plan is roughly this; how do you translate regional good intentions into useful activity at the national and sub-national levels? As I’ve noted, we have sought to build up some of the consultative processes associated with the Plan as a means of addressing this, but larger questions lurk behind this, ones for which process can’t supply the answers. 27. Some of them get back to that matter I referred to earlier: to what extent do we currently think of ourselves as a region? My broad view is that we may, genuinely, be on the cusp of something in that regard, but that we still have a good way to travel if we are to cross over, as it were, into a more deep-seated regionalism. I don’t think we need be especially surprised by this – in the period of their independence, the Forum member countries have devoted a good deal of time thusfar to expressing and cementing their national sovereignties and it is in only fairly recent times that they have begun to look, in any real depth, to what benefits regionalism might bring them. This is not to suggest that regional cooperation has not had some signal successes over the years. It clearly has, not least, I’d suggest, in terms of political advocacy in the broader international context – one thinks, for example, of issues such as climate change, fisheries and anti-nuclearism. But there is also a very considerable sense in which much of this regional cooperation is seen as additional to national priorities rather than intrinsic to them. So, assuming we do agree that our regional endeavours are worth pursuing, worth deepening, what this seems to me to boil down to is the need for more thinking at national, political level about the ramifications of regionalism. And I think USP is well placed to play a role in fostering this because it is a key exception to what I’ve been saying – an institution, an activity which both expresses a regional purpose and is built into national requirements. 28. In saying this, I would not want any of it to be seen as critical of our political leadership. They after all have got behind the Pacific Plan concept and clearly wish to see it developed. But in a number of ways, they are in a considerably more complex position than those seven Leaders who founded the Forum were. It is in no sense qualifying their achievement to observe that they were living in a more optimistic time, when the possibilities of their newly independent countries were still being explored and tested. Likewise, their regional aims were largely exploratory. And at the Forum’s core, in those days, were the personal chiefly relationships of Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Now, no one would claim that the relationships among those three countries have ever been other than complex, but those relationships did make a very natural basis for consultation. As the Forum grew, inevitably, some of that personal character diminished. All things considered, and like similar situations in other regions of the world, our Leaders do not see a huge amount of one another in any given year. On top of that, the membership of the Forum is now much more diverse and we have also seen the emergence of sub-groupings within the Forum. My own view, in broad terms, is that if it makes practical sense to attack particular problems on a sub-regional basis rather than through an across the board regional approach then we should get on with it – we are not so blessed with time and resources that we can try to force everything into one mould. On the other hand, this kind of approach, practical as it is, unquestionably adds another dimension to the whole issue of maintaining regional coherence. 29. And to the degree that our member countries continue to go down the path of regionalism, taking us, perhaps, past the current voluntary arrangements into areas where commitments may need to be more binding, there are any number of complex issues which will need to be worked through. Just how will a regional audit service work? A regional Ombudsman? A regional Human Rights Commission? Regional Judicial Services? All of these proposals, parts of the Pacific Plan and all, in one way or another now under active discussion, will only achieve the ownership, the meaning necessary to make them effective if our members come to see them, not as infringements on hard-won sovereignty, but as enhancements of it, a means of adding to their resources and opportunities. 30. All of that implies communication and discussion. Some of that will come through the various formal mechanisms now in place. Experience suggests however that these mechanisms need to be underpinned by a process less formal, more discursive – the kind of process, call it Track II or what you will – which ultimately assists Leaders, Ministers, other practitioners to come to the table in a position to produce well-ground outcomes. It may not be a helpful suggestion but it seems to me that a good deal of this needs to be tackled at national level rather than regional level, rather than relying only on activities which are regionally convened. And that, in part at least, gets back to resources. But at the end, as they say, of the day, it seems to me an unavoidable fact that coming to agreements at a regional level can be surprisingly achievable; making them grow out of national priorities projected onto a regional canvas, much harder. 31. I hope that in all of this I have provided at least some food for thought. It is all very much work in progress for us – we learn as we go. I do wish you very well with this initiative. In the Secretariat, you have a very willing partner. |
2007