NEWSPAGE 09 November
2011

(Photos: University of Waikato)

(Photos: Press Secretariat)

SAMOA: Samoa’s WTO milestone applauded
Source: Press Secretariat

Samoa’s long and tedious road to join the World Trade Organisation was applauded this week.

Speaking on the opening of the joint government-private sector accession workshop at Tanoa Tusitala Hotel yesterday morning, International Trade Center (ITC) representative Mr Arif Hussain described Samoa’s ten-year process as “a model for other (WTO) acceding countries to follow.”

“Samoa took its time, taking in its reform process at its own pace,” he said.
“It was conducted very orderly, in a very deliberate manner taking the whole of society into the process. The government and private sector cooperated intensely.”

Mr Hussain said that there are no more barriers to Samoa joining the WTO and that it should be a full member “by mid next year or even before that” when the formal process of signing the protocol of accession and ratification are completed.

Delivering the keynote address, The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade Negotiations, the Hon. Fonotoe Nuafesili Pierre Lauofo stated that WTO accession is crucial to sustained growth and investment.

“It has been more than ten years since Samoa first lodged its application to become a member of the WTO,” he said.

“In response to global changes and global challenges, the government has implemented an array of reforms and applied policies to create economic stability and an enabling environment for investment and growth.

“Samoa’s WTO accession would allow us - at the very least - to actively participate in determining our trade direction.”

Fonotoe said the experience with WTO accession dealt with a high level of national consultations - with various stakeholders - to clarify issues and determine common positions to meet demands and conditions of WTO member countries.

This work, he said, was facilitated by the National Working Committee on Trade Arrangements, comprising officials of key line ministries, the private sector and civil society.

CHALLENGES

But the accession process and the work of the committee was not without challenges, said Fonotoe.

“The limited stakeholder awareness of the implications of WTO membership and the perception by private businesses of the threats of joining this multilateral body were at the forefront of these challenges.

“Government has been able to meet these challenges through its partnership with the private sector.”

This close partnership was underscored by the Chamber of Commerce president Namulauulu Sami Leota as critical in engaging private business in the process.

“As president, I had the opportunity to witness the final negotiations last week in Geneva and I must say that it was not an easy task, given the demands and expectations from the WTO member countries.

“The negotiators, under the leadership of Tofa Auelua Enari, made sure that the mandate and the interests of the country are within the scope of negotiations.”

But the biggest challenge, Namulauulu pointed out, will be in the immediate post-accession period when the private sector starts coping with accession commitments.

“It will not be easy. But the fact that we have a close and strong partnership with government is a comfortable thought.”

The two-day workshop, he said, will provide the necessary feedback from the private sector to facilitate “an enabling environment for business to grow.” Said Mr Hussain.

“The emphasis of this national workshop is entirely on the post accession phase. Ensuring that Samoa secures the benefits of its accession.”


Photo Caption: Participants at the National Workshop on WTO Accession, Tanoa Tusitala Hotel.

AUSTRALIA: Tongan women join dialogue on empowering Pacific women against violence

Canberra, Australia: The Pacific Women's Empowerment Dialogue on Stopping Violence Against Women met at Australia's Parliament House in Canberra. The meeting was co-hosted by AusAid and the US Department of State.

The Tongan delegation attending the policy dialogue, included Polotu Fakafanua-Paunga from the Women's Affairs Department of the Ministry of Education, Women's Affairs and Culture, Lau'aitu Tupouniua Assistant Commissioner from the Tonga Police, 'Alisi Finau from Crown Law, Fuiva Kavaliku from the Tonga National Centre for Women and Children, and 'Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki from the Women and Children Crisis Centre (WCCC).

The dialogue was opened by the Hon. Kevin Rudd, Minister for Foreign Affairs in Australia, and an official address by the United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

The meeting covered areas such as regional progress on ending violence against women, access to justice - looking at legislative and policing responses, providing support services for survivors, working with new partners to prevent violence against women. The meeting looked at working with communities, men and church leaders, and conducting research on the prevalence and cost of violence against women and donor and development partner responses, as well as making recommendations for a way forward

'Ofa-Ki-Levuka Guttenbeil-Likiliki, director of Tonga's WCCC said that the policy dialogue provided opportunities for Pacific island countries, including Tonga to look at the key priorities in this area for the next 5-10 years. "Also to reflect on the success of best practices in this area in the Pacific region, for example the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre and the Vanuatu Women's Centre.

"Each Pacific Island country is at a different stage, some are well advanced and others are just starting. In Tonga, we are prioritizing areas such as legislation, research and support services for survivors," she said.

The Tonga delegation returns to Tonga this week.
 

NAURU: Helping Each Other Through Peer Reviews: Nauru Takes Action
Source: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Press Release via Scoop Independent News

Nauru is taking steady action towards improving development effectiveness on the small island nation.

The world’s smallest republic, covering a mere 21 square kilometers, Nauru isn’t short of drive to improve the lives of its 10,000 or so citizens. This proud island nation has seen its share of challenges. From its heyday during the late 1960s and early 1970s boasting the highest per-capita income in the world thanks to the island’s phosphate returns, to the present where a mined-out atoll has left a people struggling to regain their identity and purpose: Nauru pushes on.

A founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum 40 years ago, Nauru is far from shy of taking charge at the regional level in pursuit of national benefits for its people. Regionalism has provided an opportunity, particularly for the Pacific’s Smaller Island States, such as Nauru, to find strength in numbers.

Nauru was the first country to volunteer to undertake a Peer Review under the Cairns Compact for Strengthening Development Coordination (Forum Compact) in March 2010.

The Forum Compact is a commitment by Pacific Islands Forum Leaders to intensify national and regional efforts to strengthen coordination and use of all development resources in the Pacific.

The Compact seeks to accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including through supporting the implementation of the Pacific Plan and national development plan priorities, providing the principles and processes for coordinated delivery.

Regular peer reviews of Forum Island Countries’ national planning, budgeting, public financial and aid management systems are aimed at promoting international best practice in these areas through strengthened national systems and guided support from development partners.

“With minimal resources, Nauru has been able to implement a lot of the key recommendations of their Peer Review by mobilizing their own and development partner resources in a practical and effective way,” said Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Tuiloma Neroni Slade.

“I commend them for that, and believe that strong political leadership, a responsive donor community and the resolve and hard work of the Nauruan people are responsible for this progress.”

Tapping into Pacific expertise

“The concept of a Peer Review is based on the idea that if a Forum Island Country wants to make improvements in its development efforts, it may be better to seek advice from Pacific neighbours, their peers,” explained Mr Slade.

“The thinking is that other island countries may be facing, and could have found solutions to, exactly the same dilemmas confronting the country requesting a review.”

A Peer Review is therefore conducted by a three-member team of two government officials from other Forum Island Countries, plus a development partner representative chosen and invited by the country volunteering to undertake a review.

Peer Reviews look at how countries formulate their priorities, turn them into budgets, implement plans and monitor and report on results; and just as importantly, how development partners act collectively and individually to support those priorities and processes.

“The reviewers do not question the policy direction of the country being reviewed,” added Mr Slade. “But consider how the choices made by that country are supported through planning, budgeting and coordination of resources.

“They aim to come up with simple and practical actions tailored to local circumstances and based on regional experience, which can be implemented in the short to medium-term to improve development coordination in a country.”

Kiribati was next to volunteer to undergo a Peer Review in 2010, followed by Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Niue in 2011.

Pioneering the Peer Review: Nauru’s experience

Nauru’s commitment to undertake a Peer Review was made by Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Finance, Hon Dr Kieren Keke, at the 2009 Forum Economic Ministers’ Meeting (FEMM) held in the Cook Islands.

Addressing the Peer Review team in-country in March 2010, Minister Keke said: “Given the energy behind the Compact when Forum Leaders endorsed it in 2009 and what we have been doing in Nauru in terms of developing our planning and aid management systems, we see this as an opportunity to take this energy and translate it into improvements to our planning and other connected processes.”

Minister Keke urged the Peer Review team not only to make recommendations but to match them with inputs that will be needed to turn them into results.

Eighteen months on, a follow-up team from the Forum Secretariat was in Nauru last month for consultations on related progress and a way forward.

“From Nauru’s perspective we found the Peer Review process quite timely as it coincided with our own timeline for development planning,” Nauru’s Secretary for Finance, Mr Seve Paeniu, told the follow-up team.

“It came after we had done a major review of our National Sustainable Development Strategy (NSDS) and had looked at internal development planning processes that could better support delivery and implementation of the Strategy. We also looked at how development partner resources could be mobilised to support its implementation.”

Mr Paeniu highlighted that Nauru is relatively new compared to other island countries to this sort of conventional development planning and budgeting processes.

“But I think over the recent years Nauru has advanced considerably given the commitment by Government on continued reform,” said Mr Paeniu.

“This spells a very bright prospect for Nauru in the foreseeable future.”

Strengthening financial management

In particular, the Government of Nauru has moved forward significantly on strengthening its public financial management systems and procedures.

Following the internationally recognised Public Expenditure Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment carried out in Nauru late 2010, complemented by the Nauru Peer Review held earlier in the year, several recommendations have been actively pursued.

With the support of its major development partner AusAID, Nauru has been able to install a new electronic Financial Management Information System (FMIS).

“We have initiated roll out of the system in the Health and Education Departments and will be ready to roll out the full system to all Ministries over the next few weeks,” said Mr Paeniu. “The new system is designed to allow us to be accountable and transparent in the use of government resources as well as the funding provided by partners.

“Nauru’s general procurement processes also required further improvements according to the PEFA, and we have scoped out the kind of processes that would meet international best practice. This is something the government now is working on improving.”

Mr Paeniu said the Nauru Government was also looking at improving internal planning and coordination processes.

“We have established our National Development Committee (NDC), which comprises of key heads of departments, and that body reviews progress on the implementation of the NSDS and provides advice to Government in terms of major policy initiatives,” said Mr Paeniu.
Challenges and the way forward

“For Nauru the challenge has always been one of capacity - being able to have enough people with the appropriate skills to be able to work with and sustain these new systems that we are putting in place,” Mr Paeniu emphasised.

“We will continue in the foreseeable future to rely on our development partners to bridge that capacity gap.”

The challenge with Development Partners, according to Mr Paeniu, is how their resources can be further tailored to meet the current Government systems.
“This would involve channeling their resources through Nauru’s national planning, budgeting, public financial and aid coordination systems preferably in the form of general budget support to meet the Government’s priorities,” said Mr Paeniu.

“Actively engaging the private sector and Non-State Actors is also important for Nauru, and the Government continues to seek ways of including these key players in these important processes.”

Forum Leaders welcome progress

At their meeting held in Auckland last month, Pacific Islands Forum Leaders welcomed progress made under the Forum Compact in 2011 and recognised the efforts of Forum Members, the Forum Secretariat, partner agencies and development partners in strengthening development coordination across the region.

In their 2011 Communique, Forum Leaders recognised the importance of increased effort across the region to strengthen public financial management through the use of diagnostic tools and processes such as Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability assessments.

Leaders agreed to showcase evidence and experience gathered during implementation of the Forum Compact as part of a coordinated regional position at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea from 29 November to 1 December 2011.
 

(Photo: Matangi Tonga Online)

TONGA: Tonga launches Seismic Network for Earthquake Observation
Source: Matangi Tonga Online
 
A Seismic Network for Earthquake Observation in Tonga was launched yesterday at the Tonga government's Geological Services Unit at Vaololoa, Nuku'alofa.

It marks the completion of a four-year project that was launched in 2007, under technical cooperation between the government of Tonga and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

JICA has provided all the hardware, software, the expertise, and over the four years has trained Tongans to operate the network. JIGA had spent about 32 million yens on the hardware and software only.

The network consists of a satellite-telemetry system of broadband seismometers, and central data receiving and processing facilities. The Tonga network has four remote Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) stations in Ha'apai, Vava'u, Niuatoputapu and Niuafo'ou; and a central hub station in Tongatapu. The unit comes under the authority of the Ministry of Land, Survey, Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change.

JICA in 2007 set up a similar network of six remote stations in Fiji. The two countries networks are physically integrated into one to cover a wider area and share the data in real-time.

For Tonga, the advantage of having its own Seismic Network is that it can provide rapid earthquake information for the Tongan public.

The Japanese Ambassador to Tonga, HE Mr Yasuo Takase, on the behalf of the government of Japan, attributed the success of the project to the passion and the dedication of Tongans to work and learn from Japanese experts.

"Your aspiration to use Japan's experience and expertise for the betterment of the life of the people in the Kingdom of Tonga are the foundation of the success of this project," he said.

"Japanese technical cooperation projects are catalysts to deepen people-to-people exchange between Japan and the Kingdom of Tonga."

The ambassador said that to build a better disaster management was also a step-by-step and never-ending learning process for any country.

"Japan's experiences since last March shows the difficulties in disaster risk management, and the importance for a community to be resilient to minimize the impact of disasters affecting their daily lives."

He believed that disaster management should be one of the center pillars of Japan's development assistance to the South West Pacific region.

Ring of Fire

The Minister of Land, Survey, Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change, Lord Ma'afu on the behalf of the Tongan government, thanked the Japanese Ambassador for the valuable assistance to Tonga.

Lord Ma'afu said that since the network was up and running and providing seismic information, the next stage of the project was how to get this information to the Tongan public in real time.

"The Tongan public should be aware that we live within the Ring of Fire," he said, referring to the fault zone that goes through Tonga Fiji and Vanuatu, in the South Pacific.

Photo Captions:

Photo 1 - Rennie Vaiomo'unga, HE Mr Yasuo Takase, Lord Ma'afu and Dr Inoue.

Photo 2 - Rennie Vaiomo'unga shows HE Mr Yasuo Takase seismic info from the region.
 

(Photo: Jamm Aquino / staradvertiser.com)

HAWAII: Forum forecast to put isles on map
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser
 
When dignitaries presented Gov. John Burns in 1970 with their report on what Hawaii might look like in the future, the concept of the islands as the "Geneva of the Pacific" was already cliché, "a theme that appears again and again in the rhetoric of modern Hawaii."

As the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference opens Tuesday in Honolulu, bringing together the heads of state from 21 nations and corporate interests from around the world, Hawaii hopes to reach beyond rhetoric toward more tangible financial connections within the region.

Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz, the lead state official for APEC preparations, said the objective of APEC is not just to generate a lot of direct spending in Hawaii that could have a short-term boost in the state's economy, but also to build relationships that might bear fruit over time.

Schatz hopes APEC could be a catalyst for Hawaii to develop the type of cultural and business relationships it now has with Japan with other countries in the Pacific.

"It's going to take more than one event for us to connect ourselves to the opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region," the lieutenant governor said. "One of the things that our administration is looking at is, how do we capitalize on the momentum and sustain it over time?"

Lifting visa restrictions on visitors from Korea and establishing direct airline flights from China are already producing results, Schatz said, and if Hawaii were to capture even a small percentage of the outbound travel markets in those countries, it could have a tremendous impact on the state's economy.

Schatz also thinks there is a growing appetite among Asian investors to form partnerships with businesses and institutions in Hawaii on alternative energy.

Schatz said it took decades to build ties and trust with Japan that extend beyond commerce, to the point where hula, for example, is part of Japan's popular culture or where Hawaii residents raised millions to help Japan recover from the devastating earthquake and tsunami this year.

"We don't want to create a situation where if the transaction goes south, so does the relationship," he said. "The relationship has to be built so that it can be sustained through the ups and downs of whatever business cycles we may both experience."

Gov. Neil Abercrombie said his philosophy toward APEC is to establish Hawaii as the easternmost anchor of the Asia-Pacific region. He said the diplomats, trade ministers and corporate executives should feel comfortable in the islands and see Hawaii as a partner, a place to both visit and do business, not as some exotic outpost of the United States.

"We're not a crossroads. We're not a pass-through on the way from Asia to the United States mainland or to the Americas," the governor said. "On the contrary, we're this anchor. We are a destination in and of itself."

Mayor Peter Carlisle said APEC is an opportunity for Honolulu to display its physical beauty, warm climate and aloha, and to establish the city as a regional business hub and conference destination.

"We don't just want Honolulu to be the heart of the Pacific because of its aloha; we want it to be a business hub of the Pacific as well," the mayor said.

He described the APEC summit as "sort of a first big step toward making Honolulu a ‘Geneva of the Pacific,' because you've got world leaders who are coming here to talk serious business and then go back to their respective economies with what's been accomplished here, as well as the ministers and the people who are leaders in their business communities as well."

The advisory committee that prepared task force reports on the future for Burns in 1970 predicted that Hawaii's prosperity would depend on peaceful regional cooperation. A task force noted that the first Pan-Pacific Union was formed in Honolulu about 50 years before, and recommended a new Pacific council to act as a clearinghouse for information about social, economic and political developments.

"One of the primary functions of such a council might well be that of providing a forum — which does not exist today — where Pacific peoples can come together to discuss common problems and mutual interests," the task force found.

At Waihee's congress on Hawaii's international role in 1988, A.A. "Bud" Smyser, an editor at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, romanticized about Hawaii as the "Geneva of the Pacific," and others encouraged the creation of a Pacific institute on commerce, an international trade center and a Honolulu stock exchange.

APEC was founded a year later at a gathering in Australia.

Geneva emerged as a center for international diplomacy and finance after the turn of the 20th century because of its central location in Europe and because of Switzerland's blend of cultures and reputation for neutrality, providing the eventual backdrop for the League of Nations and the European headquarters of the United Nations.

"Nobody's building Genevas anymore, and hasn't for some time," said Charles Morrison, president of the East-West Center.

But Morrison said Hawaii can be an ideal venue for events like APEC in the future and, with the right coordination and organizational execution, can help build important cultural and financial ties within the region.

Thinking of APEC as a one-off event — like hosting a Super Bowl or a national political convention — would be a missed opportunity, he said.

"It might be true that we kind of exaggerate its significance. But part of the real reason for making a big effort on this is that it's not just a one-off event; it's something for the future of this state," Morrison said.

Photo Caption: Welcome signs for APEC 2011 -- like this one in Waikiki -- have been placed throughout Honolulu as the city prepares to greet delegates from around the world this week for high-level discussions that will run through the weekend.