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‘CNMI participation in Pacific community necessary’
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Posted on Nov 24 2005
Although the group focuses on the southern region, Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente says the CNMI’s participation in the South Pacific Community is necessary as it tackles regional issues affecting the Marianas.
“They’re doing a lot of work. Even the donor countries, Australia, France, and the U.S. praise the way the organization runs its programs which have assisted smaller entities in the Pacific…We don’t get that direct benefits but being a part of an organization that has a say over the entire region, I feel is very necessary,” said Benavente, who represented the CNMI in the annual Conference of Pacific Community in Palau on Nov. 18.
He said topics discussed in the meeting are similar with what the CNMI faces as an island economy.
“Learning from all these are important,” he said.
South Pacific Community “aims to develop the technical, professional, scientific, research, planning and management capability of the peoples of the Pacific, to provide them information and advice directly and to enable them to make informed decisions about their future development and well-being.”
The Conference of the Pacific Communities was sponsored by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, headquartered in Noumea, New Caledonia.
SPC was founded as the South Pacific Commission in 1947 by Australia, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the U.S. under the Canberra Agreement.
The group now includes four of the founding nations—the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have withdrawn.
It also includes American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and twenty other Pacific island nations and territories.
Benavente said that during the annual conference, members elected a new SPC director-general, Jimmy Rogers from Solomon Islands.
Rogers replaced Guam’s Lourdes T. Pangelinan, who had been the SPC director general since January 2000.
She was SPC’s first woman chief executive.
