Kanaky-New Caledonia: Adding a voice to Pacific regional leadership
AAPS is excited to announce “Kanaky-New Caledonia: Adding a voice to Pacific regional leadership”, an important session at the Pacific Discourses and Destinies AAPS 2025 biennial conference at the University of Sydney, 3-6 June 2025. To attend this event, register via the USYD conference webpage.
Kanaky-New Caledonia: Adding a voice to Pacific regional leadership
Kanaky-New Caledonia is on the path to become a fully sovereign nation of the Pacific. Since the Noumea Accord in 1998, Kanaky-New Caledonia has embarked on a decolonisation process towards self-determination and independence and to pursue greater integration to the Pacific region as a Melanesian country.
The current discourse on Pacific leadership amplified by the 2050 Blue Pacific Continent strategy calls for political leadership to drive the regional agenda in light of geopolitical competitions and external powers bidding for our natural resources. Kanaky-New Caledonia strives to play a leading role in regional affairs however its political status as a Non-Self Governing Territory and its geostrategic location within the Indopacific strategy championed by France and its allies in an attempt to counter the perceived Chinese hegemony in the Pacific region brings challenges to its efforts for more regional integration.
This paper will address New Caledonia’s efforts to consolidate its integration as a Pacific nation and identify challenges between France’s Indo-Pacific policies and the ongoing negotiations with Paris for a lasting political solution and for both countries to contribute to enhancing regional leadership and engagements for the Blue Pacific Continent.
Jimmy Naouna
Jimmy Naouna is of Kanak origin, the Melanesian indigenous people of New Caledonia. He is also a member of PALIKA Political Bureau. PALIKA – Kanak Liberation Party – is one of the major political parties within the pro-independence coalition the FLNKS (Kanak National and Socialist Liberation Front) of New Caledonia.
Mr Naouna graduated with Bachelor of Arts from La Trobe University Melbourne in 1994 and has since worked around the Pacific, formerly at the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Secretariat (Pacific Concerns Resources Centre) in Suva, Fiji in the early 2000 before joining the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu in 2010 after a stint in the Nickel mining industry in New Caledonia.