From 3-6 August 2010, the 41st Pacific Islands Forum will be held in Port Vila, Vanuatu, during which Forum Leaders will review the progress of the Cairns Compact on Strengthening Development Coordination. During this period, the Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), Tuiloma Neroni Slade, will be answering questions on the Cairns Compact.

Secretary General Tuiloma Neroni Slade of Samoa leads the Secretariat of the Pacific Islands Forum, a political grouping of 16 independent and self-governing states, founded in 1971. The Forum Secretariat has primary responsibility for implementing the Cairns Compact, which is a response to Forum Leaders' concerns that the Pacific region remains off-track to achieve the MDGs by 2015. Find out what the Compact is, and how it works to accelerate progress against the MDGs, by strengthening Forum Island countries' leadership of their own development agenda.

Tuiloma Neroni Slade was elected to the position of Secretary General for three years on 20 August, 2008. Prior to this, he was elected to the International Criminal Court where he served as Presiding Judge of Pre-Trial Chamber II at The Hague, Netherlands and held an extensive diplomatic career (1993-2003) including serving as Samoan Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

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