South Pacific region. The participating countries are the SIDS member States of the South Pacific Forum (SPF): Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the South Pacific Forum. Partner organizations are primarily the members of the Council of Regional Organizations in the Pacific (CROP). These in-clude: the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA); Pacific Islands Development Programme (PIDP); South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP); South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC); Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC); South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO); University of South Pacific (USP); and the South Pacific Tourism Secretariat (SPTS).

The prime objective of C-SPOD is to assist regional development through the strengthening of regional cooperation. The programme focuses on sustainable development of the region’s living marine resources, concentrating on three areas: 1) institutional development and capacity building; 2) natural resource management, with an emphasis on living marine re-sources; and 3) deep-sea fisheries, with an emphasis on the protection and sustainable management of high seas resources.

The South Pacific faces many sustainable development problems of both a short-term and longer-term nature. In the short term, the concern is with the sustainable management and development of the migratory species (tuna) and other living marine resources. With respect to the longer term, the concerns are with the effects of climate change and sea-level rise. C-SPOD addressed the major short-term issues by covering the following thematic areas of the Barbados Programme of Action: coastal and marine resources (Chapter IV); regional institutions and technical cooperation (Chapter XI); transport and communication (Chapter XII); and human resource development (Chapter XIV).

The programme laid the foundation, by means of institutional strengthening, for enhancing the capacity of the region to deal with the longer-term problems of sustainable development. In particular its achievements included the update of national shipping and ports legislation and regulations; turtle conservation; surveillance and enforcement training for fisheries officers; the establishment of the USP Marine Studies Programme; workshops on inshore fishing; and the identification and management of near-shore mineral resources in the
South Pacific.

• The planning process in regional programmes should take into account the need to reinforce linkages among regional participants and to establish linkages with other external agencies with similar interests and problems.
• Programmes and their component projects need to be integrated with the mid- to long-term development plans of the recipient country or region.
• The programme provides a good model for tackling short and long-term sustainable development issues for SIDS in other regions.

Mr. Lennox Hinds
Sr. Oceans and Marine Affairs and Fisheries Advisor
Policy Branch, CIDA
200 Promenade du Portage
Hull, Quebec
Canada K1A 0G4
Tel.: (819) 997-0483
Fax: (819) 953-3348
E-mail: lennox_hinds@acdi-cida.gc.ca