Backgrounder: Pacific Islands Forum

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-9-3 10:00:59

The leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) nations meet in Majuro, capital of Marshall Islands, for their annual gathering scheduled on Sept. 3- 6.

The main theme of this year's conference is "Marshalling the Pacific response to climate change."

The PIF, known until Oct. 27, 2000 as the South Pacific Forum, is a key political and economic policy organization in the Pacific region. Forum leaders meet annually to develop collective responses to regional issues.

The first PIF was held in 1971 in Wellington, New Zealand. The meeting was stemmed from a desire by leaders to address common issues from a regional perspective and to give their collective views greater weight in the international community.

The forum's membership has increased from the original seven founding members (Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa) to also include Micronesia, Kiribati, Niue, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Fiji was suspended from the Forum in May 2009, as it failed to meet the deadline of announcing a general election date.

The PIF's agenda is based on issues raised by members and reports from the Secretariat and other regional organizations and committees. Decisions by the leaders are reached by consensus and are outlined in a forum communique, from which policies are developed and a work program is prepared. The annual forum meetings are chaired by head of the host country's government, who remains as forum chair until the next meeting.

Since 1989, the forum has held Post Forum Dialogues with key Dialogue Partners (PFDP) at ministerial level. The 14 PFDP members include Canada, China, the European Union, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Britain and the United States.

The Forum's administrative arm is the PIF Secretariat, based in Suva, Fiji.

Posted in: Asia-Pacific

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