Tongan Prime Minister Dr 'Aisake Eke speaking at the National Development Summit. 18 March 2025 Photo: Screengrab / Tonga Broadcasting Live Streaming
The government of Tonga, led by Prime Minister Dr 'Aisake Eke and formed at the end of last year, is holding its first national development summit in Nuku'alofa.
The forum is being held over four days, and is for the people of Tonga to contribute to a dialogue on the nation's development progress in the past decade (2015-2025), as well as to support the development of forward-looking strategies (2026-2036).
The summit is being held under the theme, "A Resilient Tonga through Transformative Action: Safeguarding Our Heritage", and is open to public.
Our correspondent in Tonga, Kalafi Moala, who attended the opening, shares the objectives it aims to achieve.
(The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Kalafi Moala: It is simply a strategic development plan, which goes back to 60 years ago. 1965 was when they started. It was one of these five-year strategic plans.This year is the 60th year of it. The only thing with it, is that back in 2015, [the government] decided, instead of five years strategic planning, they were going to have 10 years.
So, from 2015 to this year, this is the end of the 10th year of strategic planning. It was time to have a conference and have a new one, develop another plan, and that is what this conference is all about.
Don Wiseman: And specifically, they'll be looking at?
KM: Well, they are looking at national development; things like economic development, education, infrastructure, and of course climate change is a big issue, compared with back in '65.
We are going to look at the problems we are encountering with drug and crime, and then how we can bring development into the public sector, and especially the communities of the outer islands.
DW: There's a massive shortage of money in Tonga to do much of this. So have they involved foreign investors in this, specifically?
KM: Yes. Actually, they are what they call the development partners, which are the governments. They were there - the high commissioners, the ambassadors of the foreign governments that are in Tonga, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China.
They were the prominent ones that were there today, and it was mentioned in the Prime Minister's speech that without the help and the assistance of these governments, there would not have been a development plan. It started all the way back 60 years ago, and then they have been involved in the later years with the planning that is taking place.
I think for me, one of the encouraging thing that I see that I have always been critical of the fact that they have planning. Then when they hatch a new plan, they don't tell you what happened in the past five or 10 years.
But today, it was very encouraging that the whole sessions that are going to be given to reporting how successful or not the past 10 year plan has been and what needs to be learned, what was good and successful and what was not.
So that is something very needful. And I was encouraged and glad that they are doing the planning and then they're evaluating whether it worked or not, before they go on to hatch another plan.
DW: Now in terms of foreign support, this is coming at a time that much of the world, most of the nations that provide most of the aid, are cutting back and cutting back, in some cases, drastically.
KM: Yes, definitely. I think this is why there was a need, appropriately, for a strategic planning session going on where it involves the development partners.
You will be able to plan according to the resources that is available for you. I think they have that very much in mind as all these different foreign partners are involved.
It is interesting that there was no representation that I noticed this morning from the Americans. They had the Australian, the UK, New Zealand and Japan and China, but I did not notice any representation there from the high commission, the American embassy.
