THE Republic of Finland’s new non-resident Ambassador to Solomon Islands, Arto Haapea has highlighted some potential areas for multilateral and bilateral cooperation between Solomon Islands and Finland despite the regional challenges both countries are facing.
Based in Canberra, Australia, Ambassador Haapea was in Honiara last week to present his Letters of Credence to the Governor General Reverend Tiva Kapu. He also met with the Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele and other Cabinet Ministers.
This was expressed by the new non-resident Ambassador of Finland to Solomon Islands, Arto Haapea in an interview with Solomon Star. “In my speech to the Governor General, I stated that though we are geographically far away from each other, there are many things that we can work together on,” he told Solomon Star.
Ambassador Haapea acknowledged that there is a very difficult geopolitical situation in the world at the moment and Finland and Solomon Islands are both facing many challenges in their own respective regions.
“For Finland, we are facing the war in Europe and that is something we are dealing with every day and it has become the highest priority of our country’s foreign policy.
As such, Ambassador Haapea said he was very delighted to see Solomon Islands vote consistently at the United Nations in favor of upholding the UN Charter, sovereignty and all the principles that matter in upholding the UN Charter and also in the case of Ukraine.
“I have seen the speeches by Solomon Islands Prime Minister and Foreign Minister at the United Nations General Assembly and there were many similar issues that Solomon Islands and Finland have been vocal about.
“Finland and Solomon Islands hold similar views that the United Nations Security Council should be reformed. The President of Finland in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly stated that the council must be reformed to better reflect the weight of the regions in the world to be more equitable.”
He said he notes that Solomon Islands is in the Executive Board of some UN Funds and agencies and also Finland has been an active member of and chair of many of these organizations. Some of the most important work of the United Nations at the moment is done through its agencies like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and others.
Ambassador Haapea said because these UN agencies are the platforms where Finland and Solomon Islands would also need to work together because they are doing the UN’s hands-on-work on the ground helping nations.
He also cited the European Union (EU) of which Finland is a member as another crucial platform for collaboration.
“Finland is a member of the European Union and all that the EU does in different countries of the world come from the EU Budget and Finland contributes to that budget as all the other EU member states.
“We coordinate together the actions both in Brussels and also in the delegations abroad. So Solomon Islands is currently covered by the EU delegation in Suva, Fiji, and the EU Ambassador will be next week here to present credentials.
“There are a number of ongoing projects of EU in hydropower, in good governance and in communities and other areas.”
Ambassador Haapea said EU had also provided a lot of assistance on COVID response vaccinations in the days of the pandemic and it was a strong collaboration that worked very well.
On potential areas of collaboration, Ambassador Haapea said as he told the Governor General in his speech and also the Prime Minister when they met, Finland’s geographical distance and limited resources available due to its commitment to the war in Ukraine, he would like to find some concrete individual projects where Finland and Solomon Islands can work together.
“For example, to fight climate change, helping climate change resilience and that sort of the community aspect which is very important for the current government here. Climate change here is the biggest threat to the nation and I very much respect and appreciate the government’s commitment to combat it. I know EU is very strong in this fight but we can also look at bilateral cooperation.
“We have some Finnish companies that manufacture innovative products like weather radars. We have a company called Vaisala Oyj that has been doing successful collaborations in Vanuatu under an UN-funded cooperation to develop weather radar so that the society can be better prepared when there are sudden changes in weather pattern.”
The ambassador said education is another area for possible collaboration between Finland and Solomon Islands and this could particularly focus on vocational education which is very strong in Finland.
“We have two different paths – one is academic studies through to university and the other is vocational education and we go quite far in that and that is one of the reasons why the education system is strong in Finland.”
Ambassador Haapea said he would always encourage the Solomon Islands Government and everyone to encourage students to work hard and even if they fail, they must not give up because failure is a big part of innovation
“So when you learn to accept failure, you will grow and can innovate more and would never be afraid of what is next. And then as much as the budgetary situation allows, it will be good to see international collaboration in innovation,” he added.
The ambassador said Finland was once a very poor nation but because of technological innovations, it managed to rise in the 70s, 80s and 90s quite highly to be the wealthy nation it is today.
Solomon Islands and Finland established diplomatic relations on 16 July 1999.
By DELI-SHARON OSO
Solomon Star, Honiara
