By Denise deBrum
Joint Economic Management and Fiscal Accountability Committee (JEMFAC) meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii
On August 23, 2016, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Vice-Chair) John Silk and Minister of Finance Brenson Wase lead the RMI delegation at the Annual Joint Economic Management and Fiscal Accountability Committee (JEMFAC) in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Director of Insular Affairs, Nikolao Pula, chaired the meeting on behalf of the U.S. Government. Other U.S. JEMFAC members were Nicholas Dean, new member from the Department of State and Bill Gallo of Health and Human Services.
Vice-Chair John Silk opened the meeting with greetings and expressed RMI’s great deal of interest, especially the stakeholders who are part of the delegation; those who have worked on preparing data, budgets and reports that are a part and parcel to Compact assistance within the Ministries which receive sector assistance. The Vice-Chair stated how the real stakeholders in the RMI under the economic assistance provisions of the Compact are its people, and this was always the intention from the days of the Compact negotiations and early days of implementation. He reminded the committees on how these meetings are important since they are about the Marshallese people and how their lives can be made better through better health, education, and other factors. He also emphasized how these meetings are an opportunity to best allocate scarce funding available for sector grants over the next seven years.
The meeting discussions focused around issues such as:
1) the Medium Term Budget Investment Framework;
2) Financial Management; and
3) Sector’s performance outcomes and objectives.
The education, health, and infrastructure sector updated the JEMFAC members on the performance outcomes, objectives/goals, and assessment tools, and also shift in priorities in each sector.
The JEMFAC members were able to approve over $34 million in Compact sector grant funding for fiscal year 2017. The meeting exemplified the cooperation and collaborative efforts by both RMI and U.S. in moving forward on issues of mutual interest.
Vice-Chair Silk noted that “the hard work of both governments resulted in agreement on key issues which should allow the budget process to move forward, and sustain the government’s efforts to improve outcomes in the key sectors of education, health and public infrastructure.”
JEMFAC will have a mid-year meeting again sometime early next year at a time and place to be determined.
