Respect and honour
PLEASE allow me to start by paying my deepest respects to the traditional elders, leaders, and community members of the Ngunnawal country – on whose lands this conference takes place.
I extend my gratitude to traditional leaders and elders across Australia and thank them for hosting so many Fijians across this great country.
I join Fiji’s Prime Minister in urging Australia to take further steps to advance reconciliation and self-determination.
Australia’s standing in the Pacific will be enhanced as it does so.
I acknowledge that opening speakers in earlier years such as the Australian Foreign Minister and Shadow Foreign Ministers, and I appreciate the invitation to a regional rather than Australian leader this year.
You could have invited any of my fellow ministers from the Blue Pacific, but you have invited me.
I am honoured.
I will try to do justice to this vast region and its diverse peoples.
Shaping the life of a rice farmer’s son
In reflecting on the future of the partnership between Australia and the Pacific, I want to share a story that is dear to my heart.
Some 45 years ago, Fiji was a young, newly independent country.
Our leaders were thinking hard about how our people could earn a living and find our way in the world.
As part of this soul searching, Fiji reached out to its friend, the Government of Australia, to support its efforts to enhance rice production and build food security.
We have a long history of growing rice in Fiji.
Nobody really knows when the first crop was planted but it took hold with the arrival of Indian indentured labourers from the late nineteenth century onwards.
Through this, we found that some regions of Fiji, including Dreketi on the island of Vanua Levu, had conditions suitable for growing rice.
Despite good soil, water and high demand, far too many rice farmers in Dreketi were losing their crops to the salination resulting from rising sea levels.
If this were not enough, they were also losing harvests to frequent droughts.
As a result, Fiji spent millions importing rice – that was income that could have been flowing to our own farmers.
Through well researched interventions, Australia supported Fiji to build irrigation systems across 100 farms in Dreketi.
This allowed gravity-fed water distribution to take place.
The newly built waterways protected farms from rising sea levels.
Regular and predictable water from dams and canals allowed farmers to harvest multiple crops in a single year for the first time.
For the farming families of Dreketi, this development investment almost doubled their incomes.
I know many of you are likely waiting on the finale of Yellowstone, but please, don’t think about farms and incomes on this scale.
Farm sizes in Dreketi were small – over 100 of them would have fit on ANU’s campus – so farmers were still poor.
But they had more certainty of income.
Income security meant that they could access credit.
Access to credit meant that they could invest to improve their food security through diversifying into new crops and livestock.
Crucially, increased income meant that they could afford to pay bus fares and school fees for their children to go to school.
Two of these farmers in Dreketi were Mrs Bhagwandei and Mr Puran – my mum and dad.
I am genuinely humbled to give this address.
You have given me a platform to express my appreciation to the people of Australia for the support they provided to my family in a deeply personal way.
Australia’s aid investment allowed me, a remote -rural student to complete my high school education.
On the back of that education, I eventually became a economics professor.
On the back of this otherwise impossible proposition of a good high school education, I am today the proud leader of the Pacific’s oldest political party – the National Federation Party – and Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister.
In a heartfelt way, I say dhanyavad; vinaka vakalevu and thank you to the people and Government of Australia on behalf of my beloved mum and dad.
Your generosity helped them to make my journey happen.
I am usually a private person.
Today I wanted to share this story as it has shaped how I think about the development partnership between Australia and the Pacific.
There are five reflections that I want to share.
Aid transforms lives
First, never forget that Australia’s development assistance touches and transforms people and communities.
This is my most important message to you.
An agriculture program four decades ago changed the course of my life.
It did so for children of the other 100 families.
I have no doubt that it has done the same for hundreds of thousands of others across the Blue Pacific and well beyond.
Second, while Australian engineers and experts shaped the program, I remember as a child watching our parents and elders advising these experts.
They told us, proudly, that they taught Australian’s how to plan waterways so water would flow even during droughts; and on how high to build the dams so that seawater would be kept out even during storm surges.
My guidance to you is, work with Pacific Islanders, not for them.
Third, four decades ago, our parents knew that they were dealing with changed rainfall patterns and that the seas were rising in unusual ways.
While our village elders knew that the climate was changing, this “term” was still to make its way into development textbooks and policy discussions.
My lessons from this is to value and work with traditional knowledge.
It will enrich – not dilute your practice.
Fourth, I want to underscore the importance of evaluation and learning.
I know that we invest in monitoring and evaluation during the life of development programs.
This is important.
What matters even more, however, is evaluation and learning five or ten years after a program has ended.
This is where you will assess the real impact of your work and learn the real lessons.
Finally, please do not underestimate what Australia gets in return for its development investments.
These 100 households in Dreketi alone have sent teachers, health professionals and engineers who are today working across Australia.
These are fine folks enriching your communities.
Platform for future
You now have a window into how Australia’s development program has shaped my own journey.
I turn to the future of Australia and Pacific development partnerships.
The meeting of the Australian international development community could not have been more timely.
In September, Pacific leaders participated at the United Nations Strategic Development Goals (SDG) Summit in New York.
At this SDG stocktake, it was clear that Pacific was well behind in achieving its development targets.
A few weeks ago, Pacific leaders met in Rarotonga where they expressed their growing frustration at the pace of delivery of development programs by many of our development partners.
We are also meeting soon after the first official visit to Australia by a Fijian Prime Minister in many years.
Fiji and Australia both spoke enthusiastically about an enhanced relationship.
And lastly, we are meeting in the shadows of a much larger meeting in Dubai – the United Nations COP28 in Dubai – one of the most consequential of global climate conferences for the Blue Pacific.
Allow me to pull these threads together.
Challenges for Blue Pacific
The decades ahead will be challenging for both the Blue Pacific and Australia.
This century will be like no other.
Some of the greatest transformations and some of the fiercest geopolitical contestation will play out in the Blue Pacific over the next decades.
The centre of the global economy has moved into Asia.
By 2050, the majority of the 10 largest economies in the world will be in the Indo-Pacific region.
China, India and Indonesia will be among the five largest economies in the world well before 2040.
The Blue Pacific finds itself in the middle of this great shift.
Geopolitical contestation will play out across a range of areas, including the digital world, artificial intelligence, outer space, the ocean surface and seabed and of course across the traditional sectors of the economy.
Australia is deeply concerned about these changes.
So are we.
Across the Blue Pacific, our leaders have expressed their deep anxiety with the growing intensity of this geopolitical contestation.
As a response to this, Fiji’s Prime Minister, the Honourable Sitiveni Rabuka, has called for the Pacific to be an ocean of peace.
That is powerful.
It signals that we place the Pacific’s interest first and foremost.
It conveys to the world that we recognise that regional stability is the bedrock of our development and of our progress.
Stability and development
Let me underscore this connection between stability and development.
Inclusive development is the surest path to stability across the Pacific.
Stability is the pathway to our prosperity.
If the Blue Pacific is unable to develop resilient health systems; modernise educations systems; adapt food systems to withstand the onslaught of climate change; or to manage debt burdens – they are likely to enter pathways that lead to instability and state fragility.
Fragile Pacific states will be less likely to be able to mediate geopolitical competition in ways that protect their sovereign interests.
Unstable and fragile states in our region is not good for Australia.
It is worse for our fellow Island States.
So to those who doubt the centrality of getting development right, this is the bluntest way in which I can present it.
On our current pathway, where many Island States, risk being unable to secure progress against the sustainable development goals, national and regional instability can no longer be ruled out.
The stocktake on SDG’s is a wake-up call for the region.
It is a wake-up call for our development partners.
My message to you as a community of development experts and professionals, your work matters to this region like never before.
Limitless possibilities
The Blue Pacific is not a region of gloom.
Ours is a region of limitless possibilities.
Like Asia, the Blue Pacific is on the move.
Our region is buzzing with energy and, creativity.
These are felt inside governments, in private sector, in small and medium enterprises and across communities.
We have so much to learn from each other; Island States learning from each other; Islands learning from Asia; Asia learning from the Pacific and
Australia learning from across this region.
The era where knowledge was seated in rich and industrial countries to be shared with poor developing countries has long gone.
Let’s keep that era well buried.
It does nevertheless amaze me that we continue to allow colonial concepts to wear out their welcome in international development.
When the ADB; the World Bank and aid partners use the term capacity building – I mainly cringe.
As a finance minister I meet development partners throughout the day.
I may start my day meeting the EU which may be proposing a program to build our capacity in agriculture.
Then I may meet the World Bank which may be saying we lack PFM capacity; then I may meet the US who may tell me that our private sector lacks capacity.
This goes on and on.
By the end of the day, it does leave me thinking about how we function as a country if we lack capacity across so many areas.
Empathy and development
How would you feel if we were to say to Australian National University that Fiji sent the late Professor Brij Lal to build capacity because Australia did not have capacity for historical research; and that Fiji had sent Noa Nadruku to build the capacity of Canberra Raiders.
It is both patronising and often humiliating when experts turn up day in and out to build capacity.
Walk in our shoes for a day.
Empathy is an important starting point for good development.
When you do, like many of those in this room have done, you will find that the Blue Pacific is brimming of capacity, skills, and talents.
The sooner everyone begins to work with these, the more impactful development investments will be.
Decolonising development really matters.
Work with our systems and not parallel to them.
Be persistent in broadening the spaces for Pacific islanders to shape and lead their development narratives.
I have seen a welcome shift among some development partners to locally led development.
If development is not locally led – it most probably is not development.
All development must be locally led; all development programs must be locally designed; and as best as is possible – locally implemented.
When the leaders of the Pacific small states met in Rarotonga a few weeks ago, they were unequivocal.
The Blue Pacific alone will define; it alone will shape, and, it alone will frame its own development.
This was aspirational before.
This is foundational now.
If programs are being designed for the Blue Pacific in distant capitals in Washington, Beijing, and elsewhere – stop!
These programs will fail at the very start.
Even if they do succeed in some of their outcomes; they will most likely harm the confidence; erode the resolve of Pacific peoples to decide their
development futures.
• Continued on MONDAY, December 25.
• PROF BIMAN PRASAD is Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily shared by this newspaper.
