Pacific leaders have been told the region is vulnerable and facing signficant change and challenges.
This is in the review of the Pacific Plan, led by a former Papua New Guinea prime minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, over the past nine months.
Don Wiseman has more:
"Sir Mekere says his team visited all 18 member or associate-member countries of the Forum, met almost 700 stakeholders across and beyond the Pacific and received nearly 70 public submissions. He says they also commissioned their own studies on specific issues, and researched a large volume of the relevant literature. Sir Mekere says this delivered a remarkably consistent message. He says people are looking for a new level and quality of political debate, policy and cooperation at the regional level. Sir Mekere says that debate needs to be more robust and the process of advancing regionalism needs to deliver bigger results. He says it needs to be genuinely game-changing in terms of mitigating the region's vulnerabilities and dependencies that will otherwise dog its social, economic and environmental well-being. Sir Mekere says the report, which is yet to be made public, recommends a number of reforms and aims to achieve more robust political debate and supporting a bigger, better, deeper process of regionalism."
