Page 34 - IB November 2019

InDepth InDepth

“YOU’VE GOT

TO BACK

YOURSELVES”:

TUKUITONGA

Why the Pacific
needs to drive its own
development agenda

Dr Colin Tukuitonga Photo: SPC

By Samantha Magick in children under five and children under one, fantastic, it’s come down in all the
countries. But on the other side of the scale, life expectancy in many of our nations
After almost six years at the helm of the Pacific Community, Dr Colin Tukuitonga are either static or dropping. In other words we have these fairly fundamental social
is at the end of his term. On January 22 next year he makes way for new Director changes that in effect require more effort, there are some improvements but by and
General, Australian Dr Stuart Minchin. large the story is not great.
Dr Tukuitonga spoke to Islands Business about his time leading the region’s scien- If you look at what the region has to trade with the rest of the world, the tuna
tific and technical organisation, and its rewards and frustrations. industry is probably better managed now that we have ever done, so that’s good
news. I’m told by my colleagues in PNA, FFA and the Tuna Commission [that in]
Islands Business: You’ve been in the role since January 2014. What are the 2010/2011 from a $6 billion industry the members got $60 million back, and
significant changes you’ve seen in this period? everybody thought, oh this is great, $60 million is a lot of money. But if you compare
Dr Tukuitonga: Externally I guess it’s the sense of a very crowded development it to the fact that they were taking US$6 billion a year out of the Pacific for the rest
space. Everyone wants a slice of the action, some good, some not so good. So I get of the world it was chicken feed. But through the work of PNA, Tuna Commission,
that sense quite strongly which puts a lot of pressure on the likes of SPC and estab- FFA, the return last year was close to half a billion. That’s more like it but obviously
lished organisations. more should come back to the region.
We [SPC] are not flashy by any means, but I am confident that SPC continues So we’ve had patches of good news but overall, I think it could be better. I keep
to do good work, for and with the members, as we have done for the past 72 years. saying our region has the potential to offer people a very good quality of life but
But there is a lot of that kind of competitive edge. Compounding that is that we are we’re not there yet and we have a number of issues to address.
targeting pretty much the same small donor pool so if you like, there is less money In the tuna industry, we [SPC] provide the scientific data that people make
but more expectation and its quite messy, I’m uncertain of the impact of all of that. decisions on and I guess that’s where SPC comes into its own. People can’t make
I’m very clear that we monitor and report publicly to our Board and to our members decisions without the data we provide. That’s what SPC is and does, and I hope the
what we achieve. So more people, more players, more expectation, less money, member countries and development partners continue to support it.
uncertain results.
So if you look at the various sectors, education for example, great stuff with IB: You’ve talked about the work SPC has done with other CROP agencies
more women in the tertiary sector but if you look at the compulsory sector, PILNA around fisheries. Can you talk about the perception that still exists I think
is a study that our team in ECAP does- great study, big study, lots of schools, lots amongst some that there is overlap, that it’s a bit hard to know where the demar-
of countries- they continue to tell us that our kids are not achieving the learning cation lies between them and if you were to look at the regional architecture as a
and numeracy expectations, and boys in particular…and so we have continuing whole, what sort of recommendations would you be looking at.
fundamental problems in the sectors, even with all these people around supposedly Dr Tukuitonga: That’s a popular myth. People like to have this recurrent story
contributing. So I guess I’m a little baffled by that. about CROP agencies competing against one another. It’s a myth by and large.
If you look at the health sector, I think the decline in child mortality, deaths Duplication is not a bad thing by the way. It’s not duplication- it’s coordination

34 Islands Business, November 2019