Ministers from across the Pacific are set to meet in Vanuatu to discuss ways to buffer nations from the economic impacts of climate change and COVID-19.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones will attend the Pacific Islands Forum economic ministers’ meeting, chaired by Vanuatu finance minister Johnny Koanapo Rasou, on Thursday and Friday.
It comes shortly after PIF leaders including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese endorsed the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.
The regional plan for the next three decades has at its heart a commitment to “accelerate our economic growth aspirations”.
“It’s about how do we ensure that we deal with the financial challenges in the immediate aftermath of COVID, which has been huge – impacting on everything from workforce to aviation,” Mr Jones told AAP on Wednesday.
Pacific island economies have been battered by cyclones in the past two years, damaging vital infrastructure, displacing whole villages and stifling business activity.
“We see the challenge of reducing carbon emissions and building resilience as a regional challenge – it is a priority for us,” Mr Jones said.
“And we want to listen to what island nations are saying about the infrastructure and economic challenges and put in place solutions, to work with them.”
Pacific island governments are scouring the world for private and public investment, including from a more militarily assertive China.
Mr Jones said Australia continued to make significant contributions to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in the region, as well as providing bilateral support and encouraging the private sector to play a role especially in telecommunications and energy.
But he would not be entering the meeting with a “closed mind” to other ways of finding finance.
Australia was aware of the strategic challenges in the region and how they impacted on the economy, as well as the need to lift people out of poverty, he said.
“Australia is committed to being the partner of choice, whether it’s in economic development, whether it’s in security issues, whether it’s in leaning into the climate change challenges.
“If you want to be the partner of choice, then you got to turn up and you got to listen.”
The meeting will be updated on the Blue Pacific Strategy and the work of the COVID-19 economic recovery task force.
There will also be information on the Pacific Resilience Facility and discussion of ways to fill financing gaps member nations need to build resilience against climate-induced disasters and resist economic shocks.
The region has faced six category five cyclones in seven years.
One estimate provided to AAP put the damage bill per cyclone-impacted country at between 20 per cent and 64 per cent of GDP.
Innovative finance is also expected to be on the agenda with the Fiji government soon to issue a sovereign “blue bond” to raise up to $US50 million for investments in new marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries, green shipping and nature-based solutions to protect vulnerable communities from sea level rise.
