Advice to Tonga: Agenda setting for Pacific leaders meeting

go through Tess Newton-Cane*

Tonga’s Prime Minister Huakavameliku Shosi-Sovaleni attends the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Suva. 9 August 2024
photo: Pacific Islands Forum

OPINION – For the past two weeks, Suva has been a popular destination for Pacific Island leaders to get their thoughts on their ideas ahead of their annual gathering. The Fiji headquarters has been busy preparing for the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting, which will be held in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, in late August.

Unrest in New Caledonia, the U.S. territory’s application for membership, shrinking banking services and a local climate finance fund were among the main topics of the minister’s meeting with senior policymakers from the region.

Neither the Forum Foreign Ministers’ nor the Forum Economic Ministers’ meetings receive the media coverage they deserve, given their influence in setting the agenda, especially in terms of what is discussed and decided at the Leaders’ Meetings.

In recent years, however, both conferences have gained more attention. This reflects a growing recognition of the importance of Pacific regionalism in understanding and engaging this part of the world. Today, the term “Blue Pacific” is ubiquitous in official statements in Washington, Tokyo and elsewhere. The concept has its roots in the work of the Pacific Islands Forum.

New Caledonia is at the forefront of the foreign ministers’ minds given recent developments, including an attempt to overhaul electoral rules that has sparked violence and chaos. The country’s GDP has shrunk by a staggering 25% since conflict broke out in early May, and sporadic unrest continues.

In an interview with the media after the meeting, Forum Chairman and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown announced that French President Emmanuel Macron has approved a Pacific Islands Forum delegation to visit New Caledonia before the leaders’ meeting. The prime ministers of the Cook Islands, Fiji and Solomon Islands hope to visit the French territory next week before going to Tonga to report to the leaders. If the trip is successful, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiweni Rabuka will face a tight turnaround when he begins a 10-day visit to China this week.

New Caledonia is now a standing item on the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ agenda. However, elsewhere on that agenda, human rights in West Papua is also a standing item. Given that the Forum’s 2019 request for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Indonesia’s Papua province did not make any progress, it is more appropriately described as a “stagnant” item. According to Brown, West Papua was not discussed during the FFMM.

Foreign ministers agreed in principle to support the applications of American Samoa and Guam to become associate members of the Pacific Islands Forum. While this is not yet finalized and the final decision lies with the leaders, Tonga is likely to approve the applications of the two countries. However, any move to full membership for the two countries will be more demanding. In 2016, the move to include New Caledonia and French Polynesia as full members, despite them being French territories, caused controversy. As Brown told the media, the Forum’s efforts to provide support to New Caledonia were further complicated by the fact that New Caledonia is both a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and a French territory.

Concerns about the exit of banking services in the Pacific are not new, given that banking services are critical to keeping the region connected to global trade and financial flows, including through remittances. Recent proposals from the leaders of Nauru and Vanuatu to Chinese banks to open branches in their countries drew strong responses from the United States and its allies. Australia and New Zealand have pledged support for countries at risk of losing correspondent banking relationships, with Australia pledging A$6.3 million ($4.15 million) in July.

The long road to establishing the Pacific Resilience Fund has finally reached another milestone. Ministers agreed to recommend to leaders that the Pacific Resilience Fund be headquartered in Tonga. While this choice may seem somewhat unexpected, it is part of the long-standing practice of “sharing” regional institutions among Pacific Islands Forum members. This is done to foster or maintain political commitment to the project of regionalism, rather than to gain the efficiencies that would come from locating them all in Suva.

It is unclear when this “homegrown” climate finance mechanism will be operational because of a huge funding gap. About $328 million of the $500 million originally earmarked for 2026 has yet to be pledged. The UN secretary-general, who will be attending the Pacific Islands Forum, has agreed to hold a pledging conference in New York soon, the forum secretariat said. All eyes will be on whether countries such as France, Britain and wealthy Middle Eastern nations join the mechanism to show their commitment to addressing the Pacific’s top priority: the climate crisis.

The Ministerial Meeting focused on key regional issues, setting the stage for the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Tonga. However, the continued onslaught of geopolitical transactionalism continues to bias countries’ thinking towards bilateral rather than regional activities. This creates a very real risk that the Leaders’ Meeting will become a delay rather than decisive action. As demonstrated in the Cook Islands last year, there are significant points of tension, including around deep sea mining.

At the same time, concerns have been raised about the transparency of the regional process at such important meetings. On the one hand, the practice of sharing a draft outcome statement with regional media following the conclusion of the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting was welcome, something that was notably absent last year. Opportunities for journalists to ask questions about what happened during the discussions remain woefully few and far between, and time is very limited. Providing more and better opportunities for media and analysts to engage with all aspects of Pacific regionalism needs to be at the heart of engaging Pacific communities on this vital and challenging journey for the region.

Tess Newton-CaneAn independent consultant and researcher in the Pacific Islands region for more than 25 years. She has been a lecturer in law at the University of the South Pacific and an adjunct associate professor at Griffith University in Australia. The views expressed in this article are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of BenarNews.

– This article was originally published by Bernal News.