Call for Marshall Islands govt to make travel produce a result

Transcript

The Marshall Islands government is being urged to ensure government workers sent overseas produce results from their trips.

Criticism has arisen over recent travel abroad by officials from other Pacific Island countries, especially in view of the size and composition of foreign delegations.

Our Marshall Islands correspondent says government services in Pacific countries are often delivered by a small number of people and his country is no exception.

Giff Johnson told Annell Husband a growing number of donor-related, overseas engagements are putting a huge strain on resources.

GIFF JOHNSON: The comment that I hear a lot of people saying, for example, on the trips that happened in the Marshall Islands, how come wives on leaders go every trip and how come there's so many people in a delegation? With the idea that, 'Yeah, OK, we know people need to attend a lot of these regional and international meetings, but instead of taking a delegation of seven or ten, how about take two people?' Things like that. And I think a secondary issue is that a lot of times I hear trips being justified by government. They'll put in a media release. They'll say 'This trip was funded by the donor' meaning 'We're not paying for it'. But it still ignores the point that whoever is on the trip is not at home to do work that they're supposed to be doing. So there's just a big downside to the large amount of travel that goes on. And it's just multiplied with more donor agencies, more countries, more projects. So you've got the US funding, TB control, or Family Planning, you've got the UN agencies funding the same things. And everybody has got different supporting systems, different meeting schedules. And these folks from small islands end up going to all these meetings and they're not home very often.

ANNELL HUSBAND: This seems like a culture that might be difficult to change because it's a bit of  a machine, isn't it?

GIFF JOHNSON: Well, it is, and it's driven heavily by the donor community, which has its set of goals and objectives it has to accomplish. Reviews and assessments and get people together to formulate new two-year, three-year, five-year plans. And I know in the fisheries side that what the fisheries departments have done is to piggy-back multiple meetings on a major meeting, so, for example, the Tuna Commission annual meeting is happening in Cairns in December, well, they'll have an FFA - Forum Fisheries Agency - meeting, Smaller Island States meeting. Those will all be wrapped in to the Tuna Commission meeting so that they can accomplish a whole bunch of things in a shorter amount of time.