LocationsWayfinders: In Conversation With: Alopi Latukefu
April 30, 2025
As we approach the Pasifika Futures Forum, UNDP Pacific is excited to present the "In Conversations With" series. This initiative will spotlight the voices and visions of Pacific leaders, thinkers, and community members, underscoring the vital role of Indigenous wisdom and knowledge in shaping the future of our region. Join us as we delve into insightful dialogues that celebrate the rich cultural heritage and innovative perspectives of the Pacific.
Today, we catch up with Alopi Latukefu, Director for the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education.
How can Indigenous Pacific wisdom and knowledge help shape the future of our region by 2050?
Pacific Indigenous knowledge and wisdom (including those of Australian and Aotearoan Indigenous peoples) are the most informed on how to survive and thrive in some of the most challenging environments over millennia. For our region to thrive and prosper, it is critically important that this knowledge base is documented, protected, and shared for the benefit of current and future generations.
Knowledge informed by such a long period of observation, stewardship, and the passing down of systems approaches for future generations to prosper and benefit from the scarce and fragile resources and environments of the Pacific (and Indian Ocean regions) cannot and should not be underestimated or ignored.
The issue will be overcoming the unconscious bias and unwillingness of Western systems of knowledge to accept, based on a very different tradition of deductive and inductive philosophical reasoning and logic, the alternative ways of arriving at traditional knowledge and wisdom, which are often reduced to orientalism, mysticism, or exoticism within the Western frame.
Renowned leader and advocate for inclusive, strategic, visionary change, Alopi Latukefu
What are the biggest challenges facing the Pacific today, and how can we turn these challenges into opportunities?
The two biggest challenges facing the Pacific today are, unsurprisingly, the existential threat of catastrophic climate change and the regional expression of major power rivalry and geopolitical instability. Many other issues, including deep-sea mining, labour mobility, and population displacement, are tied in different ways to these challenges.
Neither of these challenges easily turns into opportunities without their own opportunity costs, but an important opportunity lies in strengthening Pacific regionalism and realigning the Pacific regional bloc as a strong and unified group that stands in strategic solidarity against the inevitable attempts at divide and rule that major power rivalries tend to foster.
What is your personal vision for the future of your country, and the Pacific at large, and what steps do you believe are essential to achieve this vision?
As a Pasifika-descent Australian, I would like to see Australia take a role in the region where it is not driving the Pacific to adopt its agenda and strategic interests, but where it is truly reflecting the interests and priorities of the region in its approach and relationship with the region.
To achieve this, I believe it’s essential that Australia prioritizes the Pacific as a special relationship, where decisions are shaped collaboratively, and the needs of the region are given priority and pre-eminence, even when this may seem counter to Australia’s own perceived economic and national interests, such as in climate policy and fossil fuel exports.
On the other side of my heritage, I would like to see my father’s country, Tonga, continue to be a positive influence and example in the region, not only as the last remaining traditional kingdom but also as a vibrant democracy whose diasporic communities’ continued global reach is seen as a strength and opportunity to be tapped into.
Learn more at the Pasifika Futures Forum from 9-14 May 2025 in Suva, Fiji.
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