I approach this question from two angles.

Firstly, how might sub-regional security approaches straddle the development-peace-security nexus demanded by the Boe Declaration on Regional Security?

In 2023, Melanesia became the first of the Pacific’s three sub-regions to begin developing a sub-regional security strategy. It’s currently awaiting endorsement by the five-member Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). It has roots in the MSG 2038 – Prosperity for All Plan and has taken shape across nearly a decade of MSG working group meetings.

The intent is sub-regional alignment and complementarity, rather than duplication. In September 2025, Fiji Policing Minister Ioane Naivalurua indicated that the MSG’s sub-regional contribution will “create an arc of stability across our region”.

He cited the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, and drew on the MSG 2038 Plan, as a reminder that development is crucial for peace and security.

Supporting the most vulnerable

Alignment with Pacific efforts to address development inequalities for the most marginalised groups should be at the heart of any peace and security strategy.

In 2025, the Micronesian Islands Forum endorsed a Micronesian Gender Equality Framework. Current MSG Secretariat consultations for a gender and social inclusion framework also aim to tackle concerning rates of gender-based violence in Melanesia. An average of two out of three women suffer violence in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu; and there are high rates of sorcery-related violence in Papua New Guinea.

These efforts bring valued attention to the intersection of development and human security work. These initiatives require budgets at the same level as hard security matters such as border security and transnational crime.

Alternative peace and security models

The MSG 2038 Plan emphasises sustained investment in peacebuilding through working with community structures.

The national security strategies of several MSG member countries reference the importance of working with customary governance, and ‘whole-of-nation’ approaches to bridging community and national needs on peace and security.

It’s likely an MSG sub-regional strategy would also incorporate these themes. This is an approach the Boe Declaration Action Plan has not yet considered. Extending the peace and security ecosystem beyond state structures is a lesson that could be instructive for Pacific regional security policy evolution.

A matter of accountability

The second angle to the overarching question relates to accountability. How can sub-regions support and align with Pacific-wide security strategies, especially while keeping the Boe Declaration’s people-centred principles in mind?

Sub-regional governance arrangements vary across the Pacific. The MSG and the Micronesian Islands Forum (MIF) have permanent secretariats while the Polynesian Leaders Group (PLG) is advancing a common charter. Each of these arrangements produces political declarations in which commitment to the themes of Boe Declaration are regularly reaffirmed – such as cooperation on health and human security, transnational crime and cybersecurity.

Consistent, high-level reaffirmation of Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)-centred security principles maintains valued sub-regional attention on broader cooperation efforts. It also extends PIF-centric concepts beyond the region’s core political membership, reaching countries and territories that primarily engage in sub-regional spaces.

Of note in the Micronesian and Polynesian arrangements is the inclusion of non-independent groups from the United States and French territories, such as American Samoa, Guahån, and Wallis and Futuna, where their membership status in relation to the PIF is that of ‘associate’.

This raises a question about the expectations of those beyond core membership under the PIF, and whether their roles and contributions to regional security cooperation might be better realised at a sub-regional level.

In the case of the MSG, its sole associate member – Indonesia – has been a key financier of the sub-regional dialogue on MSG security strategy. It is also included in – and likely also accountable to – future arrangements. But unlike the larger catchment of the MIF and PLG, whose members are also PIF associate members, Indonesia holds a different status as a PIF Dialogue Partner. The political status of French Polynesia, New Caledonia, American Samoa, and Guahån, bring their respective colonial powers – PIF Dialogue Partners France and the USA – into the security equation. Military competencies are not devolved, nor likely to ever be in the current geopolitical climate.

The Ocean of Peace declaration provides an entry point to reconcile the different sub-regional associations of those beyond a core PIF membership.

However to underpin greater accountability to the Blue Pacific Way, its implementation plan will need to further articulate the structures and processes by which sub-regional security architectures are recognised in a PIF-centred regional security architecture.

Dr Anna Naupa is a Research and Engagement Fellow (Pacific Security) at the Pacific Security College.

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