Story 68 - Official Opening of the Kids Parliament - 12-1-008

NB: Welcome to the Official Opening of the Kids Parliament in Samoa. Let us Kids begin by saying that we probably have more development questions to ask than we have answers. So here goes the test – see how well you do.


Official Opening of the Kids Parliament in Samoa

Our whole speech is under-pinned by a new development policy permeating Oceania, commencing in April 2008 and coordinated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Secretariat. They have designed for us a “Pacific Alliance for Sustainability” or G-PAS as they prefer to call it. Samoa stands to receive $USD4-5million of development funding within the next few months in accordance with our National Country Priorities and also your Regional Priorities .

GEF-PAS Goal and Objectives are as follows:

The goal of GEF-PAS is to enhance and stimulate economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for Pacific countries through regionalism. The overall objective is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of GEF support to PICs, thereby enhancing achievement of both global environmental and national sustainable development goals. A strategic objective is to contribute to sustainable development through improvements in natural resource and environmental management, in part by addressing the main barriers preventing effective action by the PICs to safeguard their rich natural resource base and heritage.


Each time I step off the plan, arriving back in Samoa, I see some subtle developmental changes, socially, culturally, economically, environmentally…..and Samoa, as you are beginning to realize, is possibly different from what you were expecting.

Over the past 3-4 decades, while Samoa has emerged into the modern world the way it has, all your Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have also developed at different speeds in different directions for different reasons.

Why? Who was at the helm steering this development ship? What were the motivations, what were the costs to humanity, the costs to our cultures, the cost to our vulnerable Pacific environments?

So what is the best development formula?

When ever I ask this question, especially at conferences like this one, I immediately get bombarded with different viewpoints, some of them diabolically opposed.

So what is the best development pathway to take? Seriously, I’m expecting some answers within the next 10 minutes.

Do we follow the G8 countries or do we develop our own Pacific style of development, one that is in harmony with nature, supportive of indigenous cultures, and offering a lifespan approaching 75-80 years?

Well, I spent a few minutes searching the web last night brushing-up before I was to mix and mingle with you all here today – wow, what a plethora of information!

One website, http://www.neweconomics.org/, ranked all countries in the world in terms of their ‘development success’, and Samoa was ranked 14th, Vanuatu was ranked first, the G8 Countries were low on this list, very low in fact.

Does anyone know where all the PICs were ranked in relation to each other?

And why?

How can we all develop our Pacific Island Countries so that we can climb up this list?

What do we need to do to make ‘sustainable development’ profitable, meaningful, culturally-sensitive and environmentally-responsible?

Is global climate change going to affect our Pacific development pathway?

And if so, what are we going to do at this Conference to change the course of Pacific development?

As PM of Samoa, I welcome your advice and direction, your cautioning and your wisdom. The Pacific means more to us than we are prepared to admit, but it is already one of the least troubled corners of the globe in terms of peace and security, we are blessed with an abundancy of natural resources, surrounded by oceans once filled with enough food to feed the world.

But what are we doing with these resources today?

PICs are rapidly gaining a reputation in recent development circles here in the Pacific (i) for making considerable progress in the broad sphere of modern development and (ii) for newly emerging development issues that we are only now just learning to acknowledge and adapt to.

The science of development studies crosses all boundaries. Today, one needs to be a historian, an anthropologist, an economist, a socio-economist, an environmentalist, an educator, a health expert, etc. in order to make sense of just a small portion of the development debates here in the Pacific.

I’m pleading with you all to share your experiences with each other and let’s jointly make the Pacific the epitome of modern development, underpinned by traditional developmental techniques that have been responsible for shaping Oceanic development for thousands of years. And we need to be careful that we don’t lose these skills, skills that our forefathers used to conquer this Ocean, surviving sustainably on most occasions.

When I attend these Regional and even Global Development Conferences, inevitably, someone presents some opposing views to confuse us all even further. What I thought was right for development 20 years ago (as Samoa was frantically exporting high quality tropical hardwood logs to the USA), I’m advised this year (on 1st January) to introduce a new national policy prohibiting the commercial logging of indigenous forests in Samoa because of the downstream repercussions for Samoa. Within weeks of releasing my latest development policy, I was listening to arguments in favour of further logging our indigenous and plantation forests “for the good of rural development”.

My own Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment took a different stance, arguing that Samoa needs to protect its upland forests, forest genetic resources, terrestrial biodiversity, watersheds, potential hydro-power opportunities, fertile soils, etc. I thought I had heard, and understood it all, then in walked some more ‘development arguments’ in terms of carbon crediting, Carbon Stock Markets, environmental foot-printing, payments for ecological services (PES), climate change adaptation and mitigation, carbon sinks and sequestrations, and many more new terms that I’m only now beginning to use in my vocabulary.

My own Ministry of Education recently signed a Framework of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) – September 2006 – in fact, all Ministers of Education in the South Pacific signed this Framework.

So, how come we are not applying ESD here today in this Forum, or are we? ESD is not just for Primary and Secondary and Tertiary students, it is also for us politicians, leaders, decision-makers and development workers. When I went to school, I was taught little about the environment and less about development, so it is no wonder that we are making some serious mistakes today.

I think I will have to stay-on at this important Development Conference to really learn all there is to learn about such a topic that is so dear to my heart, and obviously all so dear to your hearts – otherwise you wouldn’t be devoting your time and even your careers to such a complex science.

Development reminds me of the health sector, one year red meat and cow’s milk are good for you, then the next year, these things are considered bad for your health if consumed in excess. Then we hear that vegetable fats are better than animal fats, and how bad coconut oil is for your health: then suddenly everyone is again singing the praises of coconut oil.

I’m sure at this ODN Conference over the next 3 days, we’ll all learn of a wide array of development issues covering almost all sectors: education, health, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, environment, social, cultural, etc., views being presented that are novel, innovative, even questionable.

As the Speaker of the House in the Kids Parliament of Samoa, what has been exciting for me personally has been the positioning of Samoa amongst all the PICs in terms of economic success, environmental protection, cultural enhancement, good governance, national security issues, health status, etc. Whilst some issues and experiences in our short history of modern development for Samoa are purely pertinent to our own national interests, others are more multi-national, regional, even global.

At times it is quite perplexing for me, but it is exciting to also see our own regional inter-governmental agencies like PIFS, SPC, SPREP, SOPAC, SPTO and others all embracing ‘sustainable development’ at different speeds.

To conclude, I want to wish you all the best with your deliberations over the next few years and that you are all given an equal opportunity to explore new development horizons, learning from the mistakes that we have all made in the past few years, and applying the best principles of development to all PICs.

And as actions speak louder than words, and using sustainable forest management as a development example, our Samoan Government has just declared 3 new National Parks on Savaii and is designing 2 more National Parks for Upolu, giving us a total of over 50,000 acres of upland forest fully protected for all future generations of Kids.

Our Samoan Government was just advised of a $USD150,000 grant to protect our National Parks and Reserves, thanks to the GEF-funded Programme of Works for Protected Areas. In fact, Samoa is also applying for a GEF-PAS (Global Environment Facility – Pacific Alliance of Sustainability) grant for $USD1.6million for a 4-Year project to Sustainably Manage the Upland Forests of Savaii Island, developing a rural economic development model that can be replicated elsewhere in Samoa and other PICs.

We need the best development knowledge and skills and applications at our finger tips. So, you give them to me, and I’ll apply them. When they fail, I’ll be back for more advice.

Good luck for the future Kids.