'IHE SoUTH PACIl."tC CoMMISSION AND
.n¡E
SOCIAL AND EOONOMIC,•••
-
to
serve as a catalyst for the development of regional
resources, an aid-organising machine and a clearing–
house and informatíon centre.
These, then, are the functions of the South Pacific Commission
as it enters the nineteen-eighties. To carry them out,
it
has a fuIl–
time staff of one hundred and ten persons, mostly based at its
Headquarters in Noumea, New Caledonia, and a budget in 1980,
equal to about four million United States doIlars.
It
works in
English and FrenCh. The Commission's work is designed to provide
optimum assistance to the peoples of our region, particularly in
the cultural, social and economic fields.
2.
CULTURAL ACflVlTlES IN THE
P
ACIFIC
The diversity of Pacific Island cultures ranges from the graceful
melodies and dances of Polynesía to the complex carvings and
ceremonies of Melanesia and the intricate and andent navigational
techniques still practised in Micronesia. To foster the artistic and
cultural activities of the regíon, the Tenth South Padfic Conference
created the South Pacific Festival of Arts. The first Festival, held
in Fiji in 1972, was a huge success and was followed by a second, at
Rotorua, New Zealand, in 1976, in whiCh Easter !sland took parí.
The third Festival, to be heldnext year in Papua-New Guinea, will
bring together well over a thousand partidpants from aIl over the
regíon, and is attracting world-wide attention.
The Commission and
UNES(;O
recently conducted a Symposium
on the Preservation of Traditional LivingArts, held in Papua-New
Guinea, and last month the Commission hosted a
UNESCO
Advisory
Committee Meeting on the study of Oceanic Cultures. Last month
too the Sixth South Padfic Cames, attended by about two thousand
athletes, were held in Fiji. The Cames, which started in 1963, were
also created by the South Pacific Conference.
One of the major social problems in the Padfic Islands, as
in
many other areas of the world, is the increasing drift to the dties.
In addition, many young people are now migrating further afield,
to metropolitan countries. The South Padfic Commission and thl!
United Nations Fund for Population .Activities have combinedto
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