Blue Pacific Initiative needs to step up its game

June 2024 will mark the two-year anniversary of the Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) Initiative, launched by the US with four other member states (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) and three partner countries (South Korea, France, and Germany).

Meanwhile, US political divisions not only threaten a halt to Ukraine funding or a government shutdown, scenarios that dominate the headlines. Those political divisions also put at risk the Compact of Free Association (COFA) agreements that the US maintains with the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Island and Republic of Palau.

Under the COFA agreements, the US provides financial assistance and in return exercises strategic denial rights, allowing it to block the militaries of other countries from entry into these countries’ territories.

The challenges facing the Pacific Islands and the US role there are deeper than COFA. The challenges will persist regardless of renewal. In case the US does not provide those funds, however, that will greatly magnify the importance of the PBP and the need for rethinking its role.

Forging a blue continent

The Partners in the Blue Pacific is an open, informal organization bringing together several like-minded nations to establish a constructive, transparent, and efficient developmental framework for the Pacific Islands, reiterating the long tradition of friendship these partner nations share with the region.

As the name suggests, PBP supports the Pacific Islands Forum’s vision of the Blue Pacific Continent, envisaging the Pacific Islands as the world’s first “blue continent,” a “Sea of Islands” united by the ocean and hence infusing them with a new sense of ownership, vigor, and confidence.

It demonstrates sensitivity