Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today signed Pacific Partnerships for Development with Prime Minister Somare of Papua New Guinea and Prime Minister Tuilaepa of Samoa at the Pacific Forum Leaders' Meeting in Niue.
These are ground-breaking new initiatives, and a central element of our commitment to a new era of cooperation between Australia and our Pacific neighbours. They give expression to the practical new regional partnership I outlined in my 6 March 2008 Port Moresby Declaration.
These Partnerships commit Australia and our partners in the Pacific to work together to meet common challenges, in particular to make faster progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and our partners' development goals.
Economic growth in the Pacific region has picked up. But progress is mixed and lags behind other parts of the world, such as the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. Many Pacific island countries are not yet in a position to achieve MDG standards of health or education by 2015. Up to a million children in the region do not attend school. As many as 18,000 children die each year from preventable causes. And lack of employment and economic opportunities, together with climate change and extreme weather, are grave concerns for vulnerable island and atoll countries.
We want to work shoulder to shoulder with our Pacific neighbours on these challenges. Our Partnerships for Development will strive to realise better development results by committing Australia to provide new and additional bilateral assistance over time, whilst at the same time embracing commitments from Pacific partners to improve governance, increase investment in economic infrastructure and achieve better outcomes in health and education and other areas.
Australia is committed to the fundamental principles of mutual respect and mutual responsibility underlying the Partnerships. We will jointly assess progress towards development outcomes and hold each other accountable for the commitments we make to our peoples and each other. This will reinforce our partner countries' leadership of their own development policy and strengthen our cooperation.
Our Partnership with PNG aims to provide better access to markets and services through improved infrastructure; faster progress towards universal basic education; improved health outcomes; strengthened public administration, including at the provincial and district levels; and to launch a new approach to providing sound development data, including a national census in 2010.
Samoa is on track to meet the MDGs. We have therefore agreed that our Partnership will assist Samoa to move beyond the Goals, by supporting a more robust economy through private sector-led growth and employment, agricultural development and regional economic integration; better quality health and education outcomes; improved governance, including public sector capacity development and strengthened law and justice agencies; and guarding against vulnerability to climate change.
Australia will be pursuing similar agreements with other Pacific partners who share this ambition and vision over the coming months and years.