Bound for Cairo
p. 44 · Read in the full issue
AS YOU are reading this article, a new invention is either being realised on the production line or someone somewhere is dreaming up one.
Like inventions which come and go, languages and their uses are constantly changing. This brings about a certain amount of confusion. What one English word means in the South Pacific does not necessarily carry the same applica tion in other English-speaking countries.
That is one problem facing Pacific Island Ministers when they meet in Port Vila, Vanuatu, later this month. Theirs is a problem of having to arrive at an acceptable position on the problem of population growth on one hand and sustainable development on the other.
The Vanuatu government is hosting the
ministerial meeting, to be preceded by
a meeting of senior officials.
The Vanuatu get-together is to, among other things, formulate a re
gional position on population growth and sustainable development for the UN Conference on World Population and Sustainable Development to be held in Cairo, Egypt, in September next year.
Pacific countries will be represented at ministerial level at the Cairo Conference. Island leaders see this international forum as a valuable opportunity to present to the international community the region’s concerns over popu lation growth and sustainable development in the hope mat future UN population programs adaress Pacific needs and concerns. Tnis is because recent studies have shown that high birth rates and increasing lifespans have resulted in a rapid population growth rate that has far outstripped economic growth in many Pacific countries. According to these statistics, over a third of the population are young people.
This is placing enormous strains on the ability of each country to provide adequate social services such as primary health care and education.
Population growth rates in the sub-regions of Melanesia and Micronesia exceed that of the world as a whole while Polynesia’s growth is lower but only because of emigration.
Based on these factors, it has been predicted that until birth rates fall, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve adequate economic growth rates to support sustainable development.
Sustainable development is a phrase that grew out of last year’s UNCED Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Since that SUSI billion summit, there have been disagree ments over its meaning. Developing countries are finding it difficult to come to terms with the requirements by industrialised nations that every country produce a sustainable development strategy.
Developing countries have problems with this requirement for a variety of reasons. For a start, needs and priorities to support the basic necessity of life vary from country to country and, on a larger scale, from region to region. The problem Pacific countnes have with sustainable development and population growth is perhaps not so unique. It is simply a burgeoning population on one hand and on the other they have been told to produce a blueprint for sustainable development.
Even just the thought of finding an adequate definition of sustainable development is a nightmare. This is because in the Pacific context, the two issues are inseparable. To look for options is no solace. There are none. If, for example,
country X were to pursue sustainable development as an option, it will be doing so knowingly at the expense of the growing population. The result will be disastrous.
The sensitivities surrounding these issues and what they mean to Pacific countries are probably the strongest case yet for island nations to take to the UN-sponsored Conference in Cairo. There, they can make a strong case to an international audience in the hope that the region’s dilemma attract attention, support and sym pathy the situation so compellingly deserves. Pacific nations had done this once at the UN Earth Summit.
There, island countries put a strong case to the industrialised countries for international assistance towards the region’s biodiversity conservation program. In recognition of their special needs, a South Pacific
Biodiversity Conservation Programme (SPBCP) was born.
At least USSIO million from the Global Environment Facility (FEE) a joint effort by the World Bank, UNDP and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been approved to run this five-year program. Apia-based South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is implementing the SPBCP whose benefits are expected to be shared by SPREP’s 22 members. Special emphasis will be on SPREP’s 14 Pacific the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa.
An agreement to utilise the USSIO million was co-signed in Suva in April by SPREP director Dr Vili Fuava’o and UNDP. While benefits from this regional effort is vet to be seen. What accounted for our effort in Rio was that tne region knew what it wanted and went there, determined to get something out. This, the region did.
True, we did not get everything we would have liked, but the fact was that our environmental concerns and other related issues got the spotlight with an immediate response by the world communities through the establishment of the US$lO million South Pacific Biodiversity Conservation Programme. All that was accomplished due to the uncompromising efforts of the region’s leaders who attended the UNCED Earth Summit.
Come the Cairo Conference, there is little doubt that the Ministerial Meeting in Vanuatu will be aiming to emulate the Pacific countries’ success in Rio. If there was one thing to learn from international conferences such as Rio, it is this the region must participate as a united force with a clear idea in its mind just what it hopes to get out of the gathering.
That means knowing just what we want even before leaving our shores for Egypt. Perhaps one thing the leaders should be arguing is that future funding for programs the South Pacific should be administered by the region’s own organisation (s) not some outfit controlled by powerbrokers and dreamers in Rome, New York or some
other place.
Past experiences have shown that much of the monetary assistance intended for the peoples in the region gets used up even before it gets there, if at all. In part, this is due to duplications and bureaucratic red tape a situation which can be greatly eased if funding for tne region is channeled through the region’s own organisation(s). □