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Pacific Islands Forum, EU sign 200 mln USD development partnership program

Xinhua, June 16, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Union and the Fiji-based Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat on Tuesday signed a development partnership program worth 166 million euros (200 million U.S. dollars), the secretariat announced.

Neven Mimica, European commissioner for international cooperation and development and Dame Meg Taylor, secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, signed the Pacific Regional Indicative Programme in Suva.

The program, funded under the 11th European Development Fund for the period 2014-2020, is expected to benefit 15 Pacific members of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States ( ACP), namely Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Key priorities include regional economic integration; sustainable management of natural resources and the environment, and the management of waste; and inclusive and accountable governance.

"Our ambition is to support the sustainable development of opportunities and resources in the Pacific region. The new governance arrangement will involve Pacific countries more closely in the programming, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation," Mimica said.

Welcoming the EU's commitment to the Pacific, Taylor said the Pacific Regional Indicative Programme "reflects the region's commitment to advance Pacific regionalism beyond regional cooperation towards deeper forms of regional integration where there are clear prospects and equitable benefits to be gained."

The cooperation between the EU and the Pacific members of ACP began in 1975, according to the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Endi