Celebrating SPC’s 60th anniversary

Celebrating SPC’s 60th anniversary

2007 is a very special milestone for the Secretariat of the Pacific Community more commonly known as the SPC. It marks the 60th year of service by the SPC to the people of the Pacific islands region.

Established on 6 February 1947 under the Canberra Agreement, at about the same time as the United Nations, SPC, then known as the South Pacific Commission, has provided services to the Pacific regions’ twenty-two island countries and territories in a broad range of sectors including Agriculture, Fisheries – both coastal and oceanic, Maritime, Forestry, Health, Statistics and Demography, Culture, Women and gender development, Youth development and media training and development.

On February the 6th, SPC will commemorate its 60th year of services to the Pacific island people in its three official locations in New Caledonia, Fiji, FSM and as well as in many of the field operations. Activities include open day displays of the types of programmes and activities undertaken by the SPC at regional and national levels to support national development in our member PICTs. Activities will include the display at national level of joint initiatives conducted with our national partners, aimed at demonstrating the results and benefits of SPC assistance.

The objective of the 60th Anniversary activities is to create more awareness about SPC, the programmes it delivers and how people can access services from the SPC. Awareness programmes about SPC’s work will continue to be featured throughout 2007 in all our island members, culminating at the SPC Conference in November this year in Apia, Samoa.

SPC's specialists and experts are available for interviews to describe the activities taking place in the region and present SPC overall work areas.

Contact Rosita Hoffmann (phone: +687 790442), SPC Communications Officer, to set the dates and times for these interviews. Check our website for more information: www.spc.int.

Useful information about SPC

SPC's core businesses are capacity building, capacity supplementation and transboundary functions. We provide technical advice and assistance, training and capacity building and research services to Pacific island countries and territories.

One key principle underpinning SPC’s approach to service delivery is ‘moving services closer to people’. This explains SPC’s progressive decentralisation of its programmes to members. In 2007, SPC has a physical presence in seventeen of its twenty-two island members with its headquarter in Noumea, New Caledonia; two regional offices in Suva, Fiji and Pohnpei at the Federated States of Micronesia; and fourteen operational field offices located in the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis & Futuna.

Guiding SPC’s work is its vision for a region that is a secure and prosperous, whose people are educated, healthy and empowered to manage their resources in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable way.

SPC's mission - to help Pacific island people make informed choices and decisions about their future and more importantly the future they wish to leave behind for future generations – their children and grandchildren.

SPC works at all levels - grassroots, national, regional and international. Promoting regional interests in scientific, technical, social and cultural areas is a critical part of SPC’s responsibilities at the international level. Pacific Island countries and territories are party to a large range of international agreements and conventions and the SPC helps its members respect their international obligations.

At the regional scale, SPC plays an active role in implementaiton of the Pacific Plan designed to strengthen regional cooperation and integration. SPC is a member of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) that comprises the heads of 10 Pacific intergovernmental organisations.

SPC's Corporate values

* Our priorities are set by our member countries and territories;

* We put the communities at the very heart of our activities by providing practical solutions to real problems;

* We work hard to provide high-quality services;

* We are working to bring positive changes to the lives of Pacific Islanders through capacity building;

* We contribute to alleviation of absolute poverty, poverty of opportunity and vulnerability to poverty;

* We strategically engage and provide options for responding to current and future opportunities and challenges;

* We promote gender, cultural and environmental sensitivity;

* We fully document the use of our funds and are committed to transparency.

SPC Programmes and Sections

SPC’s technical programmes are divided into three divisions that provide technical assistance and training and carry out research.

Land Resources Division

* Agriculture and Forestry

Marine Resources Division

* Coastal and Oceanic Fisheries, Maritime Affairs

Social Resources Division

* Human Development Programme – Community Education, Culture, Women and Youth

* Statistics and Demography Programme

* Public Health Programme

* Media Production and Training

Pacific Community members

The Pacific Community currently has 26 members including the following Pacific Island countries and territories served by SPC :

Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna, and four founding nations: Australia, the United States of America, France and New Zealand.

ENDS

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