The Pacific Islands Forum summit is one of the most important annual events in the Oceania political calendar, where the leaders of 16 Pacific countries including New Zealand and Australia get together to deliberate issues concerning the region.
This year’s venue was Port Vila, Vanuatu. Prime Minister John Key headed the New Zealand delegation with Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully also present during the two-day deliberations.
Of the many issues that cropped up during the summit was the contentious one of Fiji and the decided that the country would continue to remain suspended from the Forum grouping until a democratic government would be elected, as required by the principles of the Forum as agreed to by all signatory member nations. Fiji was absent from the summit for the second year running.
But an important development from New Zealand’s side was about letting Fiji officially take part in Pacer Plus regional free trade talks – something that had been held in abeyance over two years. Prime Minister Key told Indian Weekender during a discussion aboard the New Zealand Air Force Boeing during the return flight to Auckland that this development was achieved because of New Zealand’s initiative.
Senior official of the European Union, Christian Lefflel also told Indian Weekender that engaging with Fiji was important despite the overall ban on new aid flows into the country. “We need to talk continuously, there is no question of turning our backs,” he said.
Increased global presence
Over the years the Forum summits have seen a steady rise in the level of participation of countries from all parts of the world, reflecting the growing geopolitical importance of the Pacific region. It is the world’s largest single region covering a third of the earth’s surface and one that has been relatively unexplored for its natural resources.
Recent changes in the United Nations’ Law of the Sea has greatly helped enhance continental shelf boundaries of island nations bringing vast swathes of the Pacific Ocean into their sovereign territorial borders, giving them rights for commercial exploitation of the resources in the sea as well as beneath the sea floor.
As a result a number of island nations have joined hands with countries and corporations from around the world to explore the possibilities of extracting these natural resources.
The Pacific is also a region of great strategic geopolitical importance given its size and there has long been a race to make inroads into the area by many of the world’s superpowers including China, Japan, France and the United States besides long standing relationships between the islands and New Zealand and Australia.
The latest superpower to join the fray is India and going by the strong Indian presence at this year’s summit, it appears that India has realised the importance of engaging in the Pacific.
Though India has had a long relationship with the Pacific especially through its ties with Fiji where the links go back nearly 150 years, its engagement in other Pacific Island nations has been lacking. But in Fiji, India has a looming presence with the Bank of Baroda and insurance giants like the Life Insurance Corporation and New India Assurance besides a number of newer Indian businesses taking root around the country.
India was keen to scale up its engagement in the Pacific, Preneet Kaur, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Government of India, told Indian Weekender hours before attending bilateral meetings with several Pacific Island nations.
The minister also attended the post Forum dialogue with several ministry officials including Arun Kumar Goel (Joint Secretary South), Ministry of External Affairs and K. A. P. Sinha, Private Secretary of the Minister of Extarnal Affairs. The Indian High Commissioner to Australia, Mrs Sujata Singh, was also present. The post Forum dialogue has in recent years become an important event because of the sheer depth and scope of the discussions between Pacific Island nations, funding agencies and far flung countries wishing to participate with the Pacific region.
India had much to offer the Pacific region, Indian delegation members said. Being a developing nation that has to contend with many challenges, the problems that India has had to deal with are similar to those faced by many of the developing island nations. India had made significant progress in small-scale projects in sustainability and harnessing renewable energy – activities that the island nations were greatly interested in.
India and Indians at Port Vila
Other than the official Indian delegation there were also other high profile Indians present. These included the Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma who came to attend the Forum summit all the way from the Commonwealth headquarters in London.
Mr Sharma said he was happy to see the felling of brotherhood among Commonwealth nations and the willingness to co-operate to tackle common problems that affected the bulk of humanity including climate change.
He was looking forward to the Commonwealth Games in India, he said, which indeed was another occasion to cement the ties between the Commonwealth league of nations. Mr Sharma also spent time conversing with the official Indian ministerial delegation.
Another Indian who was at meetings that were held on the fringe of the Forum summit was Minar Pimple, the Regional Director for Asia and Pacific for the United Nations Millennium Campaign.
Based in Bangkok, Mr Pimple (pronounced Pimpley) oversees the progress in the Asia Pacific region on developing countries’ progress on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve poverty in these nations by 2015. The programmes also aim to eradicate illiteracy, improve maternal and child care and provide drinking water, sanitation and shelter to all.
Many Pacific Island countries were lagging behind in their achievement and needed a boost, Mr Pimple said.
By all accounts, India seems set to step up its Pacific initiative in the years to come and it is quite probable that India will send an even bigger delegation to attend next year’s Pacific Island Forum summit that will be hosted in Auckland just before New Zealand’s biggest ever event, the Rugby World Cup.
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Indian Weekender and editor-in-chief Dev Nadkarni would like to acknowledge the support of the Pacific Cooperation Foundation in the development of this article through its media assistance programme in covering the Pacific Island Forum summit in Vanuatu. PCF is a not-for-profit organisation focused on improving the economic and social development of the Pacific. For more information please visit www.pcf.org.nz