COVID-19 has provided an opportunity for senior economic advisers to work with Pacific Island governments in finding solutions to inspire and propel economic recovery.
In addressing the Forum Economic officials virtual meeting yesterday, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat general secretary Henry Puna said the region sure did live in very challenging times.
“The last 18 months have been, perhaps, one of the toughest periods for our region, for our countries and most especially our people,” he said.
“We have had to contend with a global pandemic that has shut down major sectors of our island economies and plummeted us into unprecedented levels of debt and growing inequality.
“We continue to face, head-on, the devastating impacts of climate change on our people and on our livelihoods.
And we are constantly forced to navigate an increasingly complex geo-political environment even as we confront our own differences here amongst ourselves, in our region.”
While we face unprecedented times, Mr Puna said there was some good news. “While we are living in some very difficult times these challenges are not insurmountable,” he said.
“This meeting is an opportunity for us to have a robust collective discussion on forward-looking and innovative, collective solutions that can inspire and propel economic recovery across our Blue Pacific Continent.
“This is an opportunity for you, as senior officials and economic advisers to your governments, to reflect on how best we can use our collective strength to negotiate better terms for our economies at the global level.
“It is no secret that we are facing a debt crisis, one that has been exacerbated by the pandemic and its devastating impacts on our economies.
Indeed, across the region, we have seen substantive increases in debt levels as governments have fought to combat the economic and health fall-out of the pandemic.”
Mr Pune urged the officials to use this meeting to find a workable way forward and furthermore to collectively discuss how best they could work together to ignite much-needed reforms to the international debt architecture.
“Personally, I have always held fast to the value and importance of conversation and dialogue, indeed, I believe this is the only way we can exchange and share views, and more importantly learn from each other,” he said.
“At this time, with our region pushing through some of the most defining challenges in our history, we must hold fast to each other. We must move forward together.
“The outlook is bleak. The International Monetary Fund predicts a negative economic outlook for the region in 2021.
GDP forecasts across our Pacific economies reflect this decline while public debt, as mentioned earlier, continues to increase.”
