Speaking ahead of Friday's 16-nation summit here, Commerce Minister Joe Keil told regional officials that the same challenges to development continued to plague the region 17 years after Samoa last hosted the heads of state meeting.

"We ask ourselves, are we as a region better off and more secure today than we were 17 years ago? The obvious answer is no," he said, singling out poverty, transactional crime, ethnic tension, bad governance, and rising populations.

"There is an apparent absence of good governance in many of our Pacific Islands, both political and economic."

Inadequate education, youth unemployment, the spread of HIV-AIDS and the threat of rising sea levels also continued to provide daunting obstacles to development, he explained.

"Many of our small island countries are finding it difficult to cope with the challenges and the changes of today's integrated, complex and unsafe world."

Officials from 14 island states plus Australia and New Zealand meeting as the Pacific Forum summit were working on a draft "Pacific Plan" expected to be unveiled by leaders on Friday.

The plan calls for greater regional integration, tighter control over a growing army of regional bodies and closer political cooperation between the island nations.

Keil said issues now were "on a much more complex and difficult scale" than when Samoa last hosted the summit, just a month after Fiji's first coup in

The Pacific was now suffering from poor management of resources, changing lifestyles that were incompatible with life on isolated and small islands and now the global threat of terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

"The numerous obligations associated with the global war on terror since 9/11 is an added cost for small island countries," he said.

His comment echoed statements by various leaders and officials over the last year on the cost to small island nations of security improvements particularly around ports and airports.

Another key threat to the region was climate change and the danger of rising sea levels. A number of the Pacific Forum member countries are low lying atoll nations who fear disappearing beneath the waves.

Keil said much of this was beyond the Pacific's control: "The international community, especially the developed countries should stop arguing over the causes of global warming and do more to stop it."

Keil said tackling issues of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security relied on members working collectively but warned against the unnecessary duplication of regional programmes that was occurring.

The Pacific "cannot keep up with the number of meetings that are going on," he said.

Forum Secretary General Greg Urwin, a former Australian diplomat, told officials that their work had to be based on the leaders desire for the people of the region to lead free and worthwhile lives.

The forum is Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, PNG, Samoa, Solomons, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

SPACE.WIRE