Dollars

and sense

Former Secretary-General of the

South Pacific Commission

George Sokomanu looks at the

decreasing aid situation in the

Pacific and offers his solution to

the problems. Kaiinga

Seneviratne reports.

PIM; Foreign aid is decreasing to this region and many Pacific Island countries are getting into financial difficulties. Does this mean that the development strategies followed by the island nations since inde pendence have been defective?

Sokomanu; One of the most funda mental things for the governments here is that if they know aid is decreasing from traditional donors, they will have to look elsewhere. But before they do that, they will have to look at their own ... structure of government, the economy, various social problems they have, and try to work something out ... Once you have sorted out your structural problems, then let’s look elsewhere.

PIM: The old subsistence system has been done away with, especially in the urban areas, with people becoming more consumerist with imports coming in. Is this the main problem?

Sokomanu: On some of these islands you have everything. Why do they need to buy from outside? There are pigs, you could even have a domestic piggery, you can have a farm, if you have a net or something, you can catch fish. There is everything, but it is a colonial legacy.

They have been told you must buy tinned food and because they have been given free supplies of these while working on

the plantations by Europeans and others,

they have taken easily to it rather than go out and look for food. People living in cities are vulnerable to this and you will find islands getting into this because the

small co-operative shops are stocking

these. They don’t sell fresh food but this canned food. If changes have to take place because aid ... is decreasing, we have to restructure these systems. We have to go back to some of this old system.

We used to have the barter system where the people near the sea used to go out to catch [seafood] and they bartered with people living up in the mountains who would come down to the village with

wild pigs, wild birds, yams and carrots and so on, and they exchanged. Life went on. If we go back to this system, it’s not going to cost us much. We must introduce this by setting up agricultural schools, for example, which will train people to go back to the village and start telling people to do this. If the government wants this to be a success, [it] must do a lot to get peo ple back to that system. People in the rural areas will easily accept it and be motivat ed. It’s people in the urban areas who will face a lot of problems.

PIM: In that sense, would you say that an organisation like the SPC must rethink its policies, as there are a lot of experts and consultants from non-Pacific Island countries, some of whom may not under stand these old subsistence economies in the Pacific Islands?

Sokomanu: It’s a good question, a question many of us Pacific leaders have pondered since the SPC’s existence. Many of the metropolitan countries have seen it as their organisation and that is why Ratu [Sir Kamisese] Mara, the president of Fiji, said let’s get out of this, this is not our club. Let’s do things the way we know it and the way we want it. That’s how the

whole thing changed. Instead of having

the usual metropolitan governments appointing their secretary-general to take over the SPC; for the last 20 years, the SPC has been guided by Pacific Islanders and we feel that it ought to be like that for the rest of the time. We have to work hard to ensure that we have our own experts ... [to] do the job. It’s our leaders who have failed us. Most leaders think that Europeans know better than our people. I think the Islander people know better... but because we lack some of the training to become an expert... we tend to rely on ... expatriates. I prefer to see my own peo ple in the Pacific doing the job.

PIM: Since the SPC is a regional development agency which is predomi nantly funded by the ex-colonial powers of the region, where many of its pro grammes are guided by consultants from these countries, you seem to say that the political will is not there at the moment to change this set-up.

Sokomanu; In certain countries you have people who come forward and artic ulate this, but others tend to hold back. We need to speak out and point to our people that you can’t just stand there and let things go. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and UK - which has with drawn from the SPC - because they give so much money, they tend to dictate in certain terms to the SPC’s organisation.

Independent countries should have equal voice - not in terms of “I have no money, so I have to give in”. If our lead ers are going to accept that then the SPC will not fully address the needs of the Pacific Island people.

PIM: I understand that when you were SPC secretary-general, you tried to get some Asian countries to join. How do you see the scope for establishing greater links with Asian countries through the SPC so that they would ultimately become donors to development projects in Pacific Island countries?

Sokomanu; I was invited twice to sit in as an observer at ASEAN meetings. I attended these with the secretary-general of the Forum Secretariat, leremia Tabai.

As secretary-general, my main aim was to bring Asian countries closer to the SPC. I don’t think we need to look at Australia, New Zealand, US or UK as the source of everything we need. Asia is so near to us and certainly they are very productive in their economic and social development.

Japan spends one per cent of the total budget of that nation, it goes into billions, on development aid. So why can’t they come in as a donor? When we talked to them, they seemed to say they were chan nelling our funds to the Forum, and if you can combine the two together and have it as one. The South Pacific Forum is not a

development training ground for the

region. The SPC is the one ... I think South-East Asia can help us. I will look at

Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan,

Taiwan and South Korea. They are giving a little bit and I think they are feeling their way around. Once our ... nations accept the reality to look for new areas of help, I’m sure they will join in. I sent five invi tations to countries to join in and the only country that said no was Canada because they said they were to far away... I don’t think we should stick to Australia and New Zealand as the only areas that we get our help from. If we do that they will tend to have more say in anything that we do at the SPC.

PIM: If Pacific Island countries want to set up an organisation linking Asia and the South Pacific, could it be done without the support of Australia and New Zealand?

Sokomanu: I don’t think our leaders should fear Australia and New Zealand.

They are still a part of the Pacific ... and have done a lot for Pacific Island nations.

If they resent bringing Asians to our coun tries let them say so. For example, Vanuatu gets between $ll and $l6 million annually from Australia. They give PNG about $3OO million, when we ask them, they they say “PNG was our former colo nial territory”. They forget to tell us they are interested in their minerals and send most of their investors there... If they give us $lOO million for our social develop ment, we will certainly say, “Let’s listen to Australia.” I’m sure if we ... go to Singapore, Japan and Malaysia and say, “I come with this package, it’s about $lOO million, will you help us in the next 20 years...?” I’m sure they will. ■