^{Friday 13 January 2012, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Noumea}

From 16 to 27 January, a team known as the expert reference group (ERG) will conduct a review of the services that SPC divisions and programmes provide to its member countries and territories, with a view to refining and contextualising the core services that SPC should focus on and deliver in the long term.

Background

This exercise is one of several initiatives by SPC that stemmed from a 2009 decision by SPC’s governing body, the  Conference of the Pacific Community, to establish a subcommittee to develop a long-term sustainable financing strategy (LTSF) for SPC.  The subcommittee’s work was twofold: to determine the core business of SPC and the key services that it must provide to its membership in the long term, and then to develop a financing strategy to support the delivery of these services.


The firm KVA Consult conducted early analytical work, identifying and documenting key deliverables for SPC after wide consultation with SPC member countries and territories. Their report will provide some guidance to the ERG in their upcoming two weeks of discussions.

At the 7th Conference of the Pacific Community, held in November 2011, SPC’s governing body endorsed the conducting of an external independent review (EIR) of SPC, a parallel initiative to support the ongoing work pertaining to the LTSF strategy.  SPC Director-General Dr Jimmie Rodgers stated, ‘This will be an organisation-wide institutional review and will consider particularly SPC’s core business, and also other issues that link directly to core business, general governance and organisational efficiency. These include items such as decision making and membership, organisational structure, strategic planning, priority setting, business practices, financial management, resources, and performance monitoring and assessment.’ The EIR will be undertaken from February to April this year.

Expert reference group

The ERG team, led by former CROP (Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific) Organisation Executive Alf Simpson, comprises eleven sectoral experts who have extensive technical expertise and Pacific experience and who are very familiar with and knowledgeable about the region’s diverse challenges and issues.


The team will review and analyse further the outcomes from the KVA Consult report and other SPC and regional literature, and will conduct further consultations with SPC’s technical divisions. The work of the ERG will be guided by terms of reference that specifically highlight its role in assisting SPC to determine the core business and services that SPC should focus on and continue to support its members with in the long term. It is envisaged that the ERG will reaffirm and/or refine these, based on their expert knowledge and extensive experience and recognising the comparative advantage that SPC may have over other technical and policy agencies and development partners.


Dr Jimmie Rodgers further commented, ‘Considerable work has been done on the long-term sustainable financing framework. This has included the work by KVA Consult, as well as the in-house analyses conducted by our own Directors and Executive on the services provided to SPC members.  All this needs further analysis and assessment and so an expert reference group has been selected for this purpose and to provide a report to SPC. It is expected that the report will come up with recommendations on the core services that SPC must provide in the long term, and the services it must move out from.’

Dr Rodgers added, ‘This ERG review and the EIR that will follow it are important milestones for SPC, especially as SPC emerges from the Regional Institutional Framework developments and merger.  We recognise that an institution-wide review is timely and due, to take stock of our interventions and assistance to our members and the people of the Pacific over the past few years, and the impact of these on future interventions.’


The ERG will convene in Suva on 16 January and their report will be presented to the EIR team who start their analysis in February.
 

For more information about the  expert reference group and its work, please contact
Patricia Sachs-Cornish, Acting Head of SPC’s Strategic Engagement, Policy and Planning Facility, SPC on email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it