The Development of sport in the Pacific as measured by our Olympic performances would appear at best to be on a slow rise, but more realistically requires some serious stimulation in order to give our athletes a better chance of success at world level sport. There have been some solid infrastructural developments however that are harder to measure, in some countries.

In sport, we are at the end of the day measured by what we put on the scoreboard. More importantly however it is what we do about that scoreboard if it doesn’t reflect our aspirations and ambitions. In this report, there will be a brief overview of development initiatives in 2008 and as we enter a new quadrennial, some thoughts on what might be appropriate for us to concentrate on leading into 2012

We have deliberately focussed on the development of our administrative infrastructure over the past 4 to 8 years and the legacy of this is now plain to see.

We have an excellent platform for communication and the development of our member database and competition management systems, which comes under the banner of Oceaniasport. This is accessed through the portal, www.oceaniasport.com  your gateway to sport in the Pacific.

We now need to turn our focus on applying this infrastructure to giving athletes a clearer pathway towards the achievement of excellence. This however must be based on real evidence and as administrators we will need to encourage the regular and frequent collection of data on our own NOC's and the member NF's.

In order to facilitate this process of information gathering, questionnaires have been constructed to assist each NOC to monitor the situation in their own Country and contribute this information to the Continental view. In addition, work is in progress through MEMOS to provide NOC’s with specific tools that will enable them to assess the efficacy of their member NF’s and help them to make more realistic decisions on the types of activities that they are seeking funding to undertake.

It appears from evidence to date that many of our NF’s and NOC’s alike are being driven by external factors such as Solidarity Programs and the pressure to attend regional and international events and that these are overriding the internally driven needs to establish a viable infrastructure for the sport which will ultimately lead to better involvement in the said externally driven programs.

Through a systematic information gathering program, NOC’s will be better placed to make informed decisions about what programs and events their members should take part in and as a result provide meaningful assistance to them as they move forward in their overall development.

It is suggested that funding guidelines be established that are tied to achievements so that NF’s can more clearly determine what their development priorities should be.

Conclusion

A new Executive will be elected in 2009 at a time when the ONOC and its office in particular faces new challenges and is confronted with a significant degree of evolution in its functionality. I therefore urge the Executive to consider carefully the directions that the ONOC secretariat takes over the next quadrennial and beyond, with respect to its operating structure and its subsequent Human Resources needs.

As ONOC now offers a range of proactive programs, it might well be appropriate to conduct a comprehensive review of the Governance and Management Structure of the organization with a view to taking it forward towards meeting the needs of its members to 2016 and beyond.

I would like to sincerely thank the outgoing Executive for their support and encouragement over the last quadrennial and in particular our President, Kevan Gosper who has overseen the establishment of ONOC as a legitimate leader in Regional sport development.