PACIFIC Islands Forum (PIFS) leaders are trying to redesign the region’s political and security machinery to better protect unity, manage outside pressure and give the 2050 Strategy the institutional backing it needs to work.
Esala Nayasi, the Forum’s deputy secretary-general for strategic policy and programming, said the long-term strategy was not meant to be a slogan, but a framework for defining Pacific regionalism in values-based and practical terms.
The objective, he suggested, was to create a regional vision that is “values-based,” “people-centred” and anchored in “unity and solidarity.”
He said the strategy emerged from a difficult moment for the Forum. In 2019, Fiji rejoined after its suspension, and leaders used that moment to agree on a new direction.
But the following year brought political strain, with five members withdrawing from the Forum. That sequence, Nayasi said, underscored why the region needed not only a long-term strategy, but a stronger architecture to deliver it.
“It is in response to some of these issues that we as a region not only need to reflect but also respond to particularly challenges that we face,” he said.
The 2050 Strategy, he added, was designed to define “regionalism” at a moment when Pacific leaders had to decide what it meant to us as a region and as a people.
A central part of the current review is partnerships. Nayasi said the Forum is learning from ASEAN’s tiered model of engagement, under which partners are divided into three layers.
The Pacific, by contrast, is moving toward a simpler two-tier system: strategic partners and development partners. The idea, he said, is to give leaders more control over how the region manages relationships and expectations.
“We have decided through the leaders that we only have two tiers: strategic partners and development partners,” he said, describing the change as one way to manage geopolitics to our own intent and purpose.
The decision is expected to come before leaders in Palau this year, along with possible moves to centralise partnerships under a more unified regional approach.
That review reflects a broader concern. Nayasi said the Pacific must operate carefully in a complex geopolitical environment, one in which member states have different capacities, governance arrangements and economic interests.
The region includes territories, developed countries, developing states and least developed states, he noted, so there is no single template for handling pressure from partners or responding to regional challenges.
Uniting Pacific Security Efforts
The security architecture is also under scrutiny. The Pacific has nine regional organisations and more than 21 agencies in the security space, yet no ministerial convening dedicated to peace and security.
“The issue now is, how do we redesign some of these different convenings and capabilities so that we are unified in our approach?” Nayasi asked.
Leaders are expected to confront that gap this year.
He said the Forum is looking at ASEAN again for a second lesson: disaster response. The ASEAN model, centred on the AHA Centre in Jakarta, coordinates civilian and defence capabilities across borders, including transport, logistics and personnel.
“Pacific leaders are now considering whether the region needs a treaty and a comparable mechanism to improve disaster response.
“The same logic is driving interest in inter-parliamentary cooperation. The Pacific Islands parliamentary group held its first inaugural meeting last year. It established an assembly, but leaders are still deciding how that body should sit within the wider regional architecture.”
Here, too, Nayasi said the Pacific is looking at ASEAN’s arrangement for guidance. The point of all this, he suggested, is not to copy other regions, but to learn from them.
The Pacific is also preparing to formalise its relationship with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) through an MOU that is close to finalisation.
“We are learning, we are growing,” he said, adding that peer learning across regions is now part of the work.
Nayasi said that since leaders last met two years ago, the region has seen about 13 or 14 new leaders, with two more elections due this year. Such churn, he said, makes it harder to sustain commitments, manage ambition and keep regional projects on track.
The architecture review for the Forum is an attempt to preserve trust, unity and a shared regional purpose in a period when geopolitics, leadership turnover and institutional fragmentation all threaten to pull the Pacific in different directions.
