CHOGM to consider wealth-creation for smallest states [1]
Tuesday, July 19, 2011 - 21:31. Updated on Wednesday, September 11, 2013 - 09:54.
by Mary Lyn Fonua
Commonwealth leaders meeting in Perth in October this year will discuss the efforts being made with the G20 for what the Commonwealth Secretary General today called "innovative sources of funding for trade and growth resilience", an idea that he said was now accepted by the World Bank.
On a first visit to Tonga, the Commonwealth Secretary General Mr Kamalesh Sharma, told Matangi Tonga Online, this afternoon that huge progress had been made on the issue of sources of funding for developing countries. This followed the Secretariat's concern at the last Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2009 over the severe global economic crisis, which left a financing gap of billions of dollars at a time when around half of Commonwealth countries were facing negative GDP growth, and few small states had received debt relief from the World Bank and the IMF.
This year CHOGM would look at a wealth-creation exercise, and how to particularly help small states in Trade and Investment, Partnership, and Climate Change.
In Tonga, the Commonwealth Secretariat has now offered a system that is being used by over 59 countries to manage their external debt. "We have offered the Ministry of Finance a very sophisticated software called Debt Recording and Management Software (CS-DRMS)," he said.
Global concern
"We've also briefed them, and leaders will discuss it at Perth as well, on the efforts we are making with the Group of 20 nations, the G20, for innovative sources of funding, which is a Commonwealth idea, for trade, for growth resilience.
"We are responsible for the whole idea of resilience and vulnerability, which is now accepted by the World Bank. What are the indicators? What are the national support systems needed? And for financing for adaptation, so we hope that progressively, what is a Commonwealth concern will, through the G20, become a global concern.
"That's a huge progress because five of our members out of 20 are from the Commonwealth in the G20 and since we work very closely with the Francophonie we can also count on France most of the time, so six out of 20 is a lot."
The associations had considered the challenges experienced by the poorest, smallest and most vulnerable countries in achieving growth with resilience so as to withstand economic shocks, including low growth rates, high debt rates and the impact of climate change and natural disasters.
Balancing act
When asked if it was a concern that small countries might offer UN vote trading in return for debt relief from the biggest lenders such as China, Mr Sharma said that it was not a Commonwealth issue.
"Member states all have political objectives in the way of their national interests, particularly in dealing with countries that can be of assistance to them. You know it's nothing unique at all for Tonga to weigh its options and then to take a decision on the way they would like to go. It is not a Commonwealth issue, particularly in the way the multilateral system of expectations and possibility of development partners, how you play it. Every single country in the world faces political decisions of this nature.
"I would not say it's particularly a contemporary phenomenon it's always been the case where you strike a balance when you weigh all your interests and your priorities and the political decision that you take," he said.
High level meeting
After a high level meeting with Tonga's Prime Minister, Lord Tu'ivakano, today Mr Sharma said they discussed issues that might be raised and briefed the Prime Minister on what to expect at the Perth CHOGM.
"That's important because first of all it's a Pacific CHOGM and then it's always good for the heads to know what's coming their way and to start reflecting on it. I told him that two reports of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and the Eminent Persons Group will make recommendations on how to realize Commonwealth values. So I just call that a value-creation exercise. And then there's a wealth-creation exercise, which is how to particularly help small states, what can we do in Trade and Investment, Partnership, and Climate Change?"
Mr Sharma said that there are 32 states in the Commonwealth with a population of less than a million and a half, "so we are very much minded to look out for the interests of small states."
Key issues for Tonga
He said four key issues for Tonga are climate adaptation finance, strengthening the judiciary, establishing an anti-corruption commissioner and elections support.
One issue was access to adaptation finance. He said there are agreements out there but the mechanism to access those are very complex and the Commonwealth is engaged in trying to simplify it or helping capacity building in this area and that was definitely of interest to Tonga.
Strengthening the Judiciary
"The second is strengthening the judiciary in any way possible."
Mr Sharma said they had exchanges on the issue with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Justice.
"They've done a lot of very good work in the judicial field, for instance, like now the laws are being translated into Tongan by an expert from the Commonwealth. And we've done judicial law reports, legislation drafting, for them so we want to strengthen the work of the magistrates so there can be a turn over of cases.
"Capacity building at low levels of magistrates is extremely important and it goes down the chain, the quality of your law degree at the University of the South Pacific, and how many lawyers are being trained, how effectively, and how many cases can be disposed by magistrates so cases don't have to travel up, that is an important starting point."
He said legislative drafting capacity was also important: "how many of your bills are being able to be translated in laws that make sense to the citizens?"
The administration of justice and training of all judicial officers was another perceived need.
Anti-corruption commissioner
"The third area that we are looking at is if the bill is passed on having a Commissioner for Transparency and Accountability against corruption what help can we give there?"
"The Fourth area is elections. They've got an election supervisor under the Ministry of Justice and I argued for his participation in something we have created which is a network of election managing bodies giving group support to each other in all the challenges, which are faced by an election commissioner, such as the demarcation of boundaries, preparation of voters' lists, deployment of security, media policy what are the level fields, aspects of transparency and confidence building in the process of voting where the actual machinery, things like transparent ballot boxes, presence of observers, all that the whole complex."
Commonwealth Secretariat
Mr Sharma said that the Commonwealth is interested in capacity building in any sector, "so that a country is able to do more by itself.. . we are not a major donor organisation, we have a modest budget that we like to use in creating a partnership - and we are responsive to needs."
Tonga had been successful over the last five years in winning about half of the technical cooperation budget for the Pacific in the Commonwealth. "That's because they have been quick off the mark in seeking the opportunities and one prime reason for that is that they have a mission in London," he said.
The technical budget had gone into most areas such as public administration, legislature and judiciary, and in the area of trade.