Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance and Strategic Planning Professor Biman Prasad says the region is failing to deliver on its promise of decent and well-paying jobs for the young wherever they are.
He says whether the young are in FSM, across PNG and or across the region, the deficit in decent job creation was causing unease across the region, and “most importantly in urban centres across the Pacific”.
Mr Prasad made the remark in his keynote address at the Pacific Update Conference held at the USP’s Japan-Pacific ICT Centre on Tuesday.
He said the Pacific region had been unable to make significant progress in reducing the gender gap.
“Figures and trends for gender-based violence are distressing. Two weeks ago, Fiji launched its National Action Plan for prevention of GBV. Sadly, more than 60 per cent of Fijian women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime,” Mr Prasad said.
“If anything, the gender divide has been worsening in several countries, and across many sectors of the economy.
“Our region has suffered disproportionately from distant wars on Ukraine.
“Price rise arising from Russia’s war on Ukraine is ravaging communities in our islands by way of price hikes that’s making the basics unaffordable. Even though not a single grain of wheat is imported from this region, the price increase for a loaf of bread across the Pacific is probably among the highest in the world.
“Supply chain failures have seen cost of shipping goods and of services spiraling. Container shipping costs in some cases have increased by several hundred percent. This is true for both the Northern and the Southern Pacific regions.”
Mr Prasad said the Blue Pacific faced not just the existential threat of climate change, but many other challenges in relation to geopolitics, superpower conflict, major social and economic challenges, declining resource base in fisheries and forests, and environmental degradation and debilitating health problems.
He said those problems were “undeniably becoming pervasive and protracted”.
“What we face are not new problems, and when you, the Pacific Update delegates take stock of where we are across the Blue Pacific, one of my questions to you is whether the situation is improving or not.
“Make no mistake – this is a crucial question: only by assessing where we stand in relation to the past can we properly understand what we need to do in relation to our future.
“What is clear, or should be clear to all of is that as a region we are not in an entirely good shape – there are many indicators of this but a major one is the physical health statistics of our people – I say major because we should always put people first.”
