Fabian Nimea, director of the Office of Statistics, Budget & Economic Management, Overseas Development Assistance and Compact Management, once again headed the FSM delegation to JEMCO and stressed the need to not deviate from the structured plan of Compact II and achievement of the FSM’s Strategic Development Goals.
“We must come to an understanding together that will ensure that we continue full funding of all Compact grants….this is not a matter of dependency. This is a matter of staying the course,” stated Nimea in his opening statements at the JEMCO meetings.
This was a central point for the FSM: that Compact funding should remain fluid, despite challenges and other unforeseen circumstances.
Nimea reiterated this point by quoting U.S. Ambassador to the FSM Miriam Hughes, calling for a “streamlined approach to development.”
Hughes had made her statements at the FSM Capitol in Palikir, on the occasion of a special ceremony for the grant award of an infrastructure grant of $3 million for immediate and needed upgrades to health facilities, schools and public safety buildings in the nation.
Nimea’s remarks set the tone for the JEMCO meetings early, where it was expected that the U.S. would take a somewhat hard-line approach to what the world’s greatest power viewed as under-performance by the FSM in the first five years of Compact II.
Producing tangible outcomes toward development objectives through effective expenditure of Compact funds remains the central target for the U.S. as it pushes the FSM toward greater global harmonization.
Through the implementation of the first five years of the Amended Compact of Free Association between the two sovereign nations, the U.S. had hinted at the possibility of the stoppage of vital funding allocations for the environment, private and public sectors — three of the six major categories under the Compact.
Nik Pula, director of the Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs and chairman of the JEMCO, reiterated the U.S. position since the development of the FSM Strategic Development Plan, in 2003.
“The Compact was never intended to underwrite the entire FSM economy, nor all of the operations of its national and state governments,” he stated in his opening remarks. The Compact, stated Pula, is an “economic springboard.”
Pula, making it clear that the U.S. wants the FSM to develop more quickly than it did under Compact I, which ran from 1986 to 2001, stated that the FSM has since 2004 treated the amended Compact too much like a safety net, and that the result is “lost time, lost opportunities, a declining economy and a continuing over-reliance on public-sector employment.”
Compact II runs from 2004-2023.
Yet through successful dialogue and a focus on partnership to meet challenges, the FSM and U.S. members of JEMCO were able to reach consensus on continued methods of improvement for both delivery and expenditure of Compact funds, which account for over 40 percent of the federation’s Gross Domestic Product, and adopted resolutions that seek closer cooperation between the FSM, its four state governments and the U.S. in implementation of the overall Compact program moving forward.
Perhaps nowhere is this prerogative more apparent than in Chuuk state, the most populous, and by extension, the most influential island group in the federation.
From a broad perspective, the fate of the federated states hinges directly on the actions of Chuuk.
JEMCO will meet again no later than Sept. 26 this year to review FSM proposals under the environment, private and capacity building sectors and to allocate unallocated funds available for FY 2009.
