PACIFIC Smaller Island States leaders have opened the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting week with a united call for greater regional action on transport, fisheries, health workforce support, procurement and access to climate finance.
The leaders met in Koror, where Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. assumed the role of Chair of the Smaller Island States grouping.
Kiribati President Taneti Maamau joined the meeting virtually from Tarawa to hand over the chairmanship after Kiribati’s 12-month tenure.
Maamau told leaders that gatherings of the SIS provided “the privilege and opportunity to converge ideas and solutions for the complex challenges that we face, especially as Smaller Island States”, and thanked members for their support of Kiribati during its term as chair.
Whipps reaffirmed the theme for the week’s engagements, B.E.L.A.U — Building Economies: Life. Action. Unity, saying stronger economies must lift livelihoods, create sustainable opportunities and deepen regionalism through integration.
The SIS leaders agreed to focus their collective efforts on four priority areas: securing reliable and affordable air and sea transport, advancing fisheries development, strengthening regional procurement and health workforce mechanisms, and improving access to climate change finance.
They also agreed on eight focus areas under those priorities to help attract more targeted support for the grouping.
The meeting also endorsed revised SIS membership criteria, building on discussions from 2025. The updated criteria are intended to reflect better the vulnerabilities and characteristics facing the region’s smaller island states today.
Whipps said it was fitting that the SIS Leaders Meeting was the first formal leader-level engagement of the week, allowing the grouping to consolidate its positions ahead of wider Forum deliberations.
Established in 1992, the SIS grouping comprises the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu.
