Secretariat of the Pacific Community

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community, or SPC (sometimes Pacific Community), is a regional intergovernmental organisation whose membership includes both nations and territories. It aims to "develop the technical, professional, scientific, research, planning and management capability of Pacific Island people and directly provide information and advice, to enable them to make informed decisions about their future development and well-being."[1] The SPC headquarters is in Nouméa, New Caledonia.

History

SPC was founded in 1947 as the South Pacific Commission by six developed countries with an interest in the region:

For reasons either of reduced development interest in the Pacific Islands region or a desire to concentrate assistance in other areas of greater poverty, two founding members have since withdrawn from the SPC: the Netherlands (1962-) and the United Kingdom (1995-98 and 2005-).

SPC's founding charter is the Canberra Agreement.[2][3] In the aftermath of World War II, the six colonial powers which created the SPC, arguably intended it to secure Western political and military interests in the postwar Pacific.[4][5][6]

From the start, SPC's role was constrained, and the invitation from Australia and New Zealand to the USA, France, Netherlands and the United Kingdom to participate in a South Seas Commission Conference in 1947 included the statement that "the [South Pacific] Commission to be set up should not be empowered to deal in any way with political matters or questions of defense or security"[7] This constraint on discussion (particularly the constraint on discussing nuclear weapons testing in the region) led, eventually, to the creation of the South Pacific Forum (now Pacific Islands Forum), which not only excluded the more distant "metropolitan" powers of France, UK and USA, but also their Pacific Island territories.

Present

Today, the SPC's role has expanded in service to its community. The SPC work-area includes the following Pacific island countries and territories, which since 1983 have been full members:

 American Samoa  Cook Islands  Fiji  French Polynesia
 Guam  Kiribati  Marshall Islands  Federated States of Micronesia
 Nauru  New Caledonia  Niue  Northern Mariana Islands
 Palau  Papua New Guinea  Pitcairn Islands  Samoa
 Solomon Islands  Tokelau  Tonga  Tuvalu
 Vanuatu  Wallis and Futuna

These were all territories (or, in the case of Tonga, a protected state) of the original founder members of SPC, but most are now independent. Dutch New Guinea, formerly represented in the SPC by the Netherlands, was transferred to Indonesia in 1969 and is no longer represented in the SPC.

SPC today is the oldest and largest organization in the 10-member Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP), a consultative process that is headed at the political level by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Since the hand-over of co-ordination of regional political issues from the SPC Conference to the South Pacific Forum in the 1970s, SPC has concentrated on providing technical, advisory, statistical and information support to its member governments and administrations, particularly in areas where small island states lack the wherewithal to maintain purely national cadres of expertise, or in areas where regional co-operation or interaction is necessary.

SPC was the first CROP organization to be headed by a woman, Lourdes Pangelinan of Guam who left the organization end of January 2006. Dr Jimmie Rodgers is the organization's current Director-General.

SPC programmes and services

SPC’s technical programmes are co-ordinated under three divisions, Land Resources, Marine Resources, and Social Resources:

Land Resources Division

The Land Resources Division, which is based in Suva, comprises two programmes – sustainable management of forest and agriculture systems, and biosecurity and trade facilitation. It provides advice, expertise, technical support and training to members on all aspects of agriculture and forestry, including:

Marine Resources Division

This division includes coastal, oceanic fisheries and maritime programmes.[8]

The Coastal and Oceanic Fisheries Programmes

These programmes of the SPC:

The Maritime Programme

The Maritime Programme works with the maritime sector of member countries and territories to:

Social Resources Division

This division covers a broad range of areas and includes the:

Programme Support Services

SPC corporate values

SPC Executives

SPC Chief Executives

The following is a list of the Secretaries-General and Directors-General (the title of the Chief Executive was changed in 1997) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (the name of the Organization was also changed in 1997, from South Pacific Commission):

Directors of Services or Deputy Directors General

Directors of Programmes or Deputy Directors General

Directors of Marine Resources or Fisheries Coordinators

Directors of Land Resources

Directors of Corporate Services

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Vision and Mission of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, retrieved 16 August 2008.
  2. ^ The Governments of Australia, the French Republic, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, New Zealand the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America (August 1984 (Fourth edition)). "CONSOLIDATION OF AGREED PROVISIONS AND PRACTICES RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OPERATION OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC COMMISSION, INCLUDING THE CANBERRA AGREEMENT OF 1947 AS AMENDED" (in en-GB). Australian Treaty Series 1948 No. 15. Australian Government Publishing Service. http://www.spc.int/coastfish/canberra.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-11].  The fourth edition of the document hosted on the Secretariat of the Pacific Community web site.
  3. ^ The Governments of Australia, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America (August 1984 (First edition)). "Agreement establishing the South Pacific Commission (Canberra, 6 February 1947)" (in en-GB). Australian Treaty Series 1948 No. 15. Australian Government Publishing Service. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1948/15.html. Retrieved 2008-08-11.  The first edition document hosted on the Australasian Legal Information Institute web site.
  4. ^ Stearns, Editor, et al., Peter N. (June 2002). "The Pacific Region, 1944-2000: The Islands, 1946-2000: 1947" (in en-US). The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. www.bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/67/4283.html. Retrieved 2008-08-13.  A licensed reproduction of Peter N. Stearns, et al., ed (2001). "H, 1, 1947" (in en-US). The Pacific Region, 1944-2000: The Islands, 1946-2000: 1947. The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. Boston: Houghton Mifflen Company. pp. =xxvii, 1243p.; maps; 25 cm.. ISBN 0-39565-237-5. 
  5. ^ "Secretariat of the Pacific Community" (in en-US). Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/556331/Secretariat-of-the-Pacific-Community#tab=active~checked%2Citems~checked&title=Secretariat%20of%20the%20Pacific%20Community%20--%20Britannica%20Online%20Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2008-08-16.  Supports SPC's formation "to advise on economic, social, health matters affecting the South Pacific Island territories..."
  6. ^ South Pacific Commission (1988). "South Pacific Commission: History, aims, and activities" (in en-GB). Pacific Islands Internet Resources. Michael R. Ogden, PhD. http://opac.sopac.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=15452. Retrieved 2008-08-16.  "The establishment of the Commission was a response by the then colonial powers to assure the economic and social stability of the Island countries and avoid a repeat of the World War II experience by creating mechanisms for meaningful relations among governments." In other words, the SPC fosters regional socio-economic stability and it provides a channel for intergovernmental relations. Regional stability and intergovernmental relations serve not only the people who live in the Pacific, but they also ultimately serve the military and political interests of the Western countries which helped found it.
  7. ^ A.H. McLintock, Editor, ed (originally published 1966) (in en-GB). Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 2007-09-18. International Relations: The South Pacific Commission. ISBN 978-0-478-18451-8. http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/I/InternationalRelations/TheSouthPacificCommission/en. Retrieved 2008-08-16.  "From the outset political and security matters were excluded from consideration; the proposed Commission was to act in a consultative capacity on questions of welfare of the peoples in the area and social and economic development."
  8. ^ Secretariat of the Pacific Community. "Marine Resources Division" (in en-US, fra). Secretariat of the Pacific Community web site. Secretariat of the Pacific Community. http://www.spc.int/mrd. Retrieved 2008-08-11. 
  9. ^ UNESCO (27 July 1998). "RELATIONS WITH THE PACIFIC COMMUNITY AND DRAFT AGREEMENT" (in en-GB). United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001129/112928e.pdf#page=2. Retrieved 2008-08-12.  Though it refers to organizing the 2000 New Caledonia Festival of Pacific Arts and is dated, page two documents SPC involvement with Festival of Pacific Arts and other cultural initiatives.

External links

Secretariat of the Pacific Community