PM says Pacific risks being left behind

South Pacific nations must co-operate and act quickly to prevent the region becoming a permanent backwater, Prime Minister Helen Clark warned yesterday.

At a meeting of several Pacific Island leaders in Auckland, Helen Clark said the region's biggest challenge was co-operation as development internationally was proceeding at a fast pace.

"We need to develop a plan for the 21st century or the Pacific could end up drifting behind the rest of the world."

The leaders included the past, present and future chairs of the Pacific Forum, which last year agreed to develop a Pacific Plan to promote regionalism among the 16 member countries.

Helen Clark said the forum wanted to bring a sharp focus to areas of co-operation and development. It needed to nut out who did what and when, and how the plan would be paid for.

That included seeing how much could be achieved in the short term (the first three years) and the long term over 10 years away, she said.

The Pacific Plan, which includes Australia, aims at achieving forum goals of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security.

Helen Clark gave the example of maritime security as an area of economic importance.

"If your ports aren't secure, is that going to put off foreign shippers from coming and providing the vital transport lifelines?"

Later, at Auckland University, the Pacific Forum Secretary-General, Greg Urwin, echoed Helen Clark's remarks.

The leaders' meeting was important to reinject political will and keep up energy for the plan, he said.

The plan came out of a desire to explore areas where acting regionally would add value, as in health, education, transport and fisheries.

While he did not see the Pacific region in a terminal decline, as it was sometimes portrayed, he conceded there were difficulties hindering development.

The proposals would be "neither surprising nor sexy" but grounded in activity already under way.

The plan was not intended as a blueprint, nor to be set in stone, but organic.

Mr Urwin said forum countries could be "knee deep in regional good intentions" about what should happen but performance was a lot patchier when it came to budgeting and political context.

"So you need proposals people can carry forward."

Mr Urwin said cynicism was an option but they had to "have a go".

He stressed the plan was in draft form and there would be holes in it and agreed after hearing criticisms that a more explicit expression of poverty reduction was needed in it.

Mr Urwin also said inherent complex issues around trade and the free movement of people would be raised.

He later told the Herald the issue of entry of people to New Zealand and Australia from smaller Pacific countries had to be thrashed out.

He also accepted there could be problems with countries whose standards of governance slipped, but saw incremental progress being made.

Pacific countries could not be mandated into compliance through a regional plan, he said.

Samoan Prime Minister and Forum chairman Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said the biggest challenge would be funding the plan, which would include how bilateral aid could possibly be better used.

There had been some cost benefit analysis but it was still necessary to prioritise projects and focus on how to put them into practice.