Clearer waters for Pacific foreign policy means leveraging geographic advantage and respecting the integrity of regional leaders, the Samoan prime minister says.
Fiame Naomi Mata’afa unscored her preference for a people-centred, consultative regional approach for the Pacific family at a special address hosted by the Lowy Institute in Canberra this week.
“The newly emerging wave of regionalism maintains a people-centred lens and Pacific control of a regional agenda,” Mata’afa said.
“It fosters wider political engagement, and maneuvers creatively through and around structures with the common goal of improving the lives of our Pacific peoples.”
Taking a measured but assertive position on the need for inclusive policy development and implementation in the Pacific, the PM said international partners needed to recognise the political dimension of development outcomes in the region.
She said this also required understanding the strategic cultural and economic value of the nations and their people and prioritising the sustainable improvement of individual livelihoods and wellbeing.
“Development actors [must] seek to engage with us in a way that supports our agency and leadership on sustainable development. As well, [the best approach] emphasises Pacific leadership and ownership on regional opportunities and challenges,” Mata’afa said.
Without being drawn on the merits or sense of the AUKUS alliance that has dominated Australian headlines this month, Samoa’s PM said it was a symptom of the varied and complex strategies, partnerships and networks that existed in the region that two large ocean spaces had morphed into a region now commonly being referred to as the Indo-Pacific.
This geostrategic reference to the Indo-Pacific region seemed to have emerged with little if any consultation with the nations that existed in them, she added.
“I feel I need to be very frank – in the Pacific, we feel our partners have fallen short of acknowledging the integrity of Pacific leadership, and the responsibility they carry for every decision made as a collective, and individually, in order to garner support for the sustainable development of our nations,” the PM said.
“Such acknowledgments can simply be in the form of information sharing, and open consultation if we consider ourselves as a Pacific family, and looking to find solutions in the Pacific way.”
Samoa’s leader said she was a proponent of leveraging regional voices in the Pacific because traditionally Western nations had expected this group of island nations to navigate around foreign policy positions that were dictated to them.
In terms of both clout and being a voice of influence on the issue of climate change, the PM said it was more constructive for the Pacific Family to exercise its common sense of identity. This understanding should form the basis of an integrated and comprehensive security architecture that expanded the traditional concept of security, she noted.
“The Pacific Islands occupy a vast oceanic region that covers almost 20% of the Earth’s surface, and is home to the world’s largest concentration of microstates.
“The Pacific’s three ethno-geographic subregions — of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia — include 10 sovereign states, five freely associated states and eight dependent territories. For the Pacific region, and its island countries, the ocean is crucial,” Mata’afa said.
“We should not be defined by the smallness of our islands but the greatness of our oceans”, she said, quoting the late Tongan and Fijian writer Epeli Hauʻofa.
Mata’afa was travelling in the UK last week, and this is the PM’s first official visit to Australia after having been confirmed as the leader of the island country by Samoa’s Court of Appeal in mid-2021.
The PM made her remarks as part of the inaugural FDC Pacific Lecture, reflecting on Samoa’s consistent advocacy for a re-energised Pacific Forum process which saw development partners work at a regional level and deliver bilaterally. Among those in the audience was DFAT secretary Jan Adams.
“This has resulted in creating a platform for the PALM process with Japan, the US-Pacific Summit, and the Korea-Pacific summit.
“It is against this background, that we have made all efforts to reconnect our Pacific family, including strengthening our regional institutions. In particular, our premier educational institute, the University of the South Pacific,” she said.
Mata’afa said collective combined agendas and actions could empower the region to better protect and promote peace and sustainability in the Pacific Ocean. For example, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nations of the Pacific Ocean posed common policy development and implementation challenges.
“The blue Pacific narrative will strengthen the existing policy frameworks that harness the ocean as a driver of a transformative socio-cultural, political and economic development of the Pacific. And it gives renewed impetus to deepening Pacific regionalism,” Mata’afa said.
“We know that we can do more together than alone. While Pacific countries vary widely in population, economic circumstances, development, political status, and stability, they face several common challenges.”
In addition to the effects of the pandemic, the existential threat of climate change to Pacific Islands nations loomed large. Political leadership, peace and security, economic development, natural disasters, as well as technology and connectivity were also active considerations for developing nations, Mata’afa said.
“Taking into account the insufficient global response to limit temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius, as a small island developing state, as well as the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), we will continue to advocate for reaching ambitious targets and urgent follow-through in the implementation of the nationally determined contributions,” the PM said.
“Samoa [is] aiming to reach a target of 100% electrification through renewables by 2030 and to promote the urgent and inclusive transformation of the land and maritime transport sectors towards decarbonisation.
“The Pacific will remain persistent in urging major emitters to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies, and accelerate actions towards transitioning to low greenhouse gas emission, climate-resilient economies,” she said.
“We will never stop pushing for all to do their part.”
Geostrategic competition in the Blue Pacific Continent also exacerbated existing vulnerabilities in the Pacific, Mata’afa said. She asked how prepared the region was to tackle the associated emerging challenges that came with this international attention and is seen as the centre of contemporary geopolitics, going on to suggest it was an opportunity to promote regional and global peace and security.
The PM also pointed to the 2050 strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent agreement developed at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meeting in Tuvalu in 2019, which highlighted these concerns, and said the approach outlined in that document represented the best way to achieve a shared vision and aspirations.
“[That] strategy reinforces commitment and working together as a collective for advancing Pacific regionalism, based on the Blue Pacific narrative,” Mata’afa said.
“Pacific Island leaders have nonetheless recognised the need for a new, inclusive and game-changing approach to Pacific regionalism or regionalism that can not only realise the unmet development needs of Pacific Island peoples, but also meet the demands of a new global development paradigm.”
Source: themandarin
