Vanuatu needs to prove membership matters

In her appeal to Pacific leaders and Representatives on the occasion of the Regional Roundtable Meeting in Bali, Indonesia, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Director, Hoonae Kim raised concern that IFAD presence and visibility in the Pacific was pretty low key and in some instances non-existence in the past.

She said the Pacific needs to become serious about its membership to IFAD which is willing to and is ready to help. Vanuatu, for that matter, needs to demonstrate to IFAD that its membership to IFAD matters.

During the week-long mission in Bali, a number of project initiatives were discussed between IFAD Regional Coordinator Chase Palmeri and IFAD Governor Howard Aru’s delegation. Once the concept note and a detailed project design have been completed, Vanuatu will begin to see good projects being carried out in the country in 2016.

Besides IFAD meetings, DG Aru also met with key officials of the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture to further discuss follow up support with machinery for Vanuatu Agricultural development in line with the country’s newly established agriculture sector policy to increase agricultural mechanization in Vanuatu. During this meeting, discussion also touched on plans for the Minister of Agriculture to pay a visit to Indonesia during the first quarter of 2016.

A final discussion was held with Uron Salum — Executive Director of the Asian & Pacific Coconut Community (APCC) based in Jakarta to explore potential ways which Vanuatu could engage more proactively with the APCC in addressing the coconut sector in the country. Vanuatu is preparing itself for funding support under the European Development Fund 11’s focus on ‘rural development’. Groundwork preparations now are very vital.

Salum is paying an important visit to Vanuatu from October 25 to November 3 to meet with key officials of Government, provincial authorities and farmers to promote current developments in the coconut industry across the Asia-Pacific region, and to encourage Vanuatu to refocus its efforts once again on this still-very-important sector of the economy.

Upon completion of the Bali/Indonesian mission, DG Aru travelled to Barbados in the West Indies (Caribbean) for the ‘Caribbean-Pacific Agri-food forum’.

Other delegates from Vanuatu (private sector, Government and media) will also be at the same forum to learn onsite of the Caribbean’s experiences in the area of ‘agri-tourism’ work as Vanuatu progresses forward to further its efforts in this sector.

Further details on this event will be communicated direct from Barbados during the week of November 2-6.

In his book – ‘Putting The Last First’ (1983) – professor Robert Chambers highlights six major predominant biases that bear heavily on development aid and Governments’ rural development efforts. All six biases work very much against the rural poor. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) (established in the early 1970s) has made it a core mission to specifically address the needs of the rural poor in developing countries and to making a difference in their lives.

Vanuatu only became a member in 2012, but that membership remained pretty much dormant until TC Pam ravaged the country in mid-March when IFAD made a generous donation of USD55,000 which is approximately VUV 50 million, to help address emergency/recovery efforts in the country.

In June Vanuatu’s Ambassador to the EU/ACP, Roy Mickey Joy and Director General of Agriculture Howard Aru, paid a courtesy call on the IFAD Vice-President and regional Director at the IFAD Headquarters in Rome on the margins of the 39th Session of FAO.

Thereafter IFAD appointed DG Agriculture Aru as its first IFAD Governor for Vanuatu. Project discussions were initiated right away between IFAD and the Ministry of Agriculture to solicit IFAD funding from 2016 onward.

As part of IFAD’s ongoing efforts to raise awareness on its work in the Pacific’s Agriculture sector, two key events were organised in the Pacific in October. First a regional technical workshop hosted in Nadi (this was attended by Vanuatu’s IFAD operational representative Lonny Bong — Acting Director of Livestock followed by an Asia-Pacific Regional Roundtable meeting and Workshop held in Bali, Indonesia from October 26-29. This was attended by the First Political Adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture Roy James Matariki on behalf of the Minister, IFAD Governor DG Aru and Bong.