52/05
3 Oct 2005 23:47:30
ADDRESS BY MR GREG URWIN, SECRETARY GENERAL,
PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM SECRETARIAT
GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION: ROLES, RIGHTS & RESPONSIBILITIES WORKSHOP
Sheraton Royal, Denarau, Nadi
Monday, 29 August 2005
Your Excellency the Vice President, Hon Speaker, Mr Gounder, Hon Ministers, Secretaries General Don McKinnon and Denis Marshall, Suliana Siwatibau, friends and colleagues, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this morning.
2. First my congratulations to the Commonwealth Secretariat and the CPA Secretariat for putting together this important workshop in a very short period of time. I thank you in particular for bringing it to the Pacific and for involving the Forum Secretariat in the organisation of it. We share with you fully the belief that it is fundamentally important to continuously engage our leaders and other stakeholders in dialogue that closely examines the way our governance institutions work. Like the Commonwealth, the Forum has come to realise that the role of Parliament in the promotion of good governance practice is indispensable and that, for this region at least, that fact may have been somewhat under-recognised.
3. Fundamentally, parliaments need to perform their constitutional functions and to perform them well. It seems to me that discussions in this workshop are one of those opportunities which will, by degrees, help our colleagues in their efforts to move our parliamentary practices closer to good governance best practice and to the creation of those conditions which will permit our legislative institutions to play something like their optimal role.
4. For our part, I think it reasonable to claim that the Pacific Islands Forum has been more constructively involved with questions of good leadership, or good governance, in recent years. This focus has developed as a result of concerns on the part of our governments and communities about the serious consequences to national development, generally, in those cases where good governance practice has at various times, been absent or weak. I am not one of those who subscribe, in any way, to some of the lurid scenarios which have been painted about our region this past few years – in their simplistic nature, they do us all a real disservice – but it would also be less than responsible of us to acknowledge that, on some occasions, the political, social impact and economic impact of these weaknesses has not only impeded individual countries but has also extended beyond national borders to affect the wider region. 5. In awareness of this, in 1997, Forum Leaders endorsed Eight Principles of Accountability, which had been adopted by the Forum Economic Ministers Meeting of that year. These principles promote the concepts of openness, transparency and accountability in the handling of public money and in the exercise of government authority. They have been taken up in whole or in part, by a number of our member countries, and perhaps more importantly in some ways have helped to shape the regional discourse on these matters in ways which most of us would, I think, consider helpful.
6. In 2000, Forum Leaders adopted the Biketawa Declaration, which commits the Forum member countries to a number of guiding security and governance related principles and courses of action. These include a "Commitment to good governance", defined as "the exercise of authority and interactions in a manner that is open, transparent, accountable, participatory, consultative and decisive but fair and equitable". Biketawa is the avenue by which the Forum may go to a member’s aid in time of trouble. It is an instrument which needs to be used and developed with subtlety and care; it exists, after all at the interface between regional cooperation and national sovereignty. But it is an important measure, in its own terms, and in terms of the way we are evolving as a region. The Biketawa Declaration has been the basis for the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, a success so far, I think, in anyone’s terms, and the current Pacific Regional Assistance being provided to Nauru.
7. In 2003, Leaders endorsed nine principles of good leadership. These principles take into account both traditional Pacific values and the Forum Leaders’ commitment to the principles contained in the Biketawa Declaration. The Secretariat is assisting Forum Island Countries to adopt this Regional Model Leadership Code. It is also supporting legislative reform in member countries through the annual Forum Parliamentary Assembly and the Forum Presiding Officers and Clerks Conference, and through the legislative needs exercises – UNDP is involved in this work as well – we have conducted in cooperation with a number of national parliaments.
8. I think some of you would be familiar with some of those measures and activities, and might like me feel that they represent a reasonable basis for future work in these areas. The trick of course is – as so often with the things we undertake – to translate, successfully, a regional good intention into national circumstances, and to do this in a way which is meaningful at the national level. Quite often this vital link between pledges and practice is missing, or less robust than it could be. There are complex reasons for this. We often attribute failure to lack of resources and capacity or political at the national level, and this is sometimes, no doubt, part of it. But the issues involved also go to the way we actually assess the value and validity of our regional cooperation. And they also relate to the responsibility which those fashioning these regional measures – that is, in part, the regional organisations – have, that is; to help make it possible for countries to adopt and use such measures.
9. The point about implementation is also at the heart of things so far as one of our major current exercises is concerned; the development of what has become known as the Pacific Plan, something which I find myself talking about rather a lot. As you may well know, Forum Leaders have called for the development of this Plan to promote their vision of a region where people will be able to lead, in their phrase, ‘free and worthwhile lives.’ They have said they want measures which will create stronger and deeper links among Forum countries; which will develop those areas where the region can gain the most from sharing resources of governance and aligning policies. Where, in other words, doing things regionally can add value to national strategies and activities - what we attempt to do regionally must pass that test. Leaders will consider a mutual set of proposals at their meeting in Papua New Guinea in October this year.
10. It is, I think, of some interest that initial analysis conducted in association with the Plan’s development, undertaken with much appreciated support from the Commonwealth Secretariat, suggests that weaknesses in governance capacity has imposed perhaps the largest economic burden on the citizens of our region, and that this burden can be calculated in considerable billions of dollars over a ten year period. You can, I think, have a debate about how these figures are arrived at, but I think the general point is well worth pondering. Poor or ineffective governance costs, and it costs a lot, and that is something that none of us can view with equanimity. It also suggests that, on a cost/benefit basis alone, we are talking about issues which certainly might, to our considerable benefit, be tackled on both a regional and a national basis.
11. Of course, governance is - to use the currently favoured term of art - a cross-cutting issue, and it is defined in the Pacific Plan, in, I think, fairly standard terms, as "the transparent, accountable and equitable management of all resources." Good governance, it is noted, "is a prerequisite for sustainable development and economic growth." The Task Force of national officials which has been steering the development of the Pacific Plan is recommending a range of initiatives for the first three years under the Plan in the areas of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security. These distinctions are in many respects false – very few of the issues we face stand alone in one category or another. All are interconnected. But that said, the specific initiatives we are proposing for implementation under the governance pillar will include:
-Regional support to consolidate commitments to key institutions such as audit and ombudsmen’s offices, leadership codes, anti-corruption institutions and departments of attorneys general; including through judicial training and education;
-Stronger regional support for the development of the Forum Principles of Good Leadership and Accountability;
-Support for the enhancement of those governance mechanisms, at the national level, charged with resource-management;
-More concerted work on the practical harmonisation of traditional and modern values and structures, and – although we have defined this primarily in security terms – the development of regionally useful methods of conflict prevention;
-The upgrading and extension of country and regional statistical information systems and databases across all the main sectors. A real weakness for us in some areas, and one which some of our smaller members have difficulty addressing at national level;
-Finding the means of getting the best out of international and regional conventions and agreements we subscribe to and support for meeting some of the obligations we take on;
-Development of a strategy to support participatory democracy and consultative decision-making (an activity which would comprehend the work of NSAs, youth, women and the disabled), and the development of a pool of regional expertise in electoral process;
-Development of common approaches to financial regulation, including, where it may be appropriate, through alignment of legislation and/or pursuit of common prudential capacities; and
-Establishment at regional level of an accountable and independent macro-micro-economic technical assistance mechanism (including statistics), to strengthen, as required by members, treasury and finance functions and provide economic analysis, again as required.
It will be noted by those familiar with the region that many of these proposals are outgrowths of existing activity. That seems only sensible – there are a number of useful activities already underway and wheel re-invention is probably the least useful option. What we are promising really, is as much vigour as we can muster in pursuit of what we feel are now fairly broadly shared regional objectives.
12. Effective governance of the Pacific Plan itself will be – and we can hardly be supporters of good governance processes if we do not practice the art ourselves - critical. The successful implementation of the Plan will be dependent on the support and commitment of Member countries and other stakeholders and that will not be forthcoming unless they play a legitimate and in the case of Member governments, a leading role in the process. It seems to me that this will involve a real assessment by our Members of the ways in which regional cooperation can actually support their specific national aims. This will involve the development at national level of mechanisms which will, in effect be the conduit between national priorities and regional responses. That will be an important task for the first year or so.
13. At the regional level, oversight and guidance of the Pacific Plan will continue to be in the hands of a group of Forum Leaders, the make-up of which will be determined by Leaders but in which the Forum Chair will play a lead role. The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat would coordinate the implementation of Pacific Plan initiatives with other regional organisations, technical service delivery agencies and other partners.
14. Forum Leaders would revisit their Vision from time to time and evaluate the Plan on a regular basis to assess its progress, thus providing a high-level platform for debate about the long-term future of regional cooperation and integration. That progress would be measured by an annual monitoring and evaluation of the process against the Plan’s Strategic Objectives. Success indicators have been developed to suit the Pacific regional context, as well as to allow for the measurement of nationally and globally agreed targets, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). I don’t believe we have, the preliminary work on the MDGs aside, really tried to do this at a regional level, and it will be interesting to see how we go. The Secretary General will convene a reference group, to include non-state representatives to provide independent feedback and advice on progress. Additionally, an independent comprehensive review of progress would be conducted every three years.
15. The real issue, the real test, of course will be, as I’ve already said many a time, will be implementation. We have many examples where the region has signed declarations, pledges and commitments that have been filed and forgotten. As we’ve been saying the link between national action and regional commitments will need to be strong if any of this has a real chance of working. Do legislatures have a role to play in all of this? The answer is simply yes, parliaments have potentially significant roles to play – perhaps bigger than ever before. They should ideally take a proactive role in ensuring that the aims and value-added aspects of the Plan are fully integrated into national development programmes and investments. It would be hard to imagine that the Pacific Plan could sustain its relevance and maintain its prospects for success at the national and regional level without the support of Forum legislatures.
16. Based on a decision of the 5th Forum Presiding Officers’ Conference decision earlier this year, several countries are currently in the process of endorsing, in their Parliament, the Forum Leaders’ Vision for the Pacific which they handed down in 2004. This is an important initiative, as the Vision needs to be shared widely. It represents a long-term goal for current and future leaders and it is important that all of them pursue this goal with commitment and vigour. And there is no better way to cement it and to make it the business of current and future parliaments than for our Parliaments to reflect on it while we are still in a gestation period.
17. Ladies and Gentlemen, to paraphrase Oliver Cromwell, a man whose parliamentary record has always been a matter of debate; "I have stood here too long for any good I may have been doing." I wish you well for this important workshop and I thank you for the opportunity to take part in it.
Thank you.
Forum Secretariat
1 September, 2005
