A core group of four Pacific leaders meet in Auckland to assess progress on the Pacific Plan for regional cooperation.
It includes New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, Samoa's Prime Minister and chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Papua New Guinea's Sir Michael Somare and Kessai Note, the President of the Marshall Islands.
Last night in Wellington, Tuilaepa delivered the Pacific Co-operation Foundation's annual lecture on the benefits of regionalism for the Pacific.
Tuilaepa says it is vital that the vision of the gains that can be made through co-operation are conveyed to all stakeholders and that the people of the region have some sense of ownership.
"The last thing we want is a Pacific Plan designed only by government officials and dropped on the region, as it were, from the sky. Nothing could be better designed to ensure that it simply gathers dust, as a number of regional grand designs have done in the past."
Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi
