South Pacific Commission

The sixteenth session of the South Pacific Commission was held at headquarters in Nouméa from October 18 to November 8, 1956, under the chairmanship of His Excellency N. A. J. de Voogd, Senior Commissioner for the Netherlands. For the first time at a Commission session a memaber of a Pacific islands race, Lieut.-Col. the Hon. Ratu Edward Cakobau, O.B.E., M.C., Alternate Commissioner on the United Kingdom delegation, represented a participating government. The Commission, after reviewing arrangements for holding courses to train Pacific islanders in assisting themselves, approved plans for the South Pacific Fisheries Training Course, held at the Commission headquarters, November 19, 1956, to February 22, 1957, and a similar course in health education for about forty trainees in 1957 in cooperation with the World Health Organization. The Commission authorized continuation of the following programs: 1) entomological research in the campaign against the rhinoceros beetle; 2 development of fish farming and pond stocking; 3) field research and advice on mosquito control problems and mosquitoborne diseases; 4) the nutrition study, for which a basic survey of food habits and nutritional status was conducted in Papua, New Guinea, and Netherlands New Guinea in 1956; 5) assistance in the establishment of libraries, literature committees, and book shops by the Commission's Literature Bureau, which had stimulated the production of books, pamphlets, filmstrips, posters, leaflets, and flannelgraphs for the islanders during the previous two years; and 6) stimulation of interest in the formation and conduct of cooperative enterprises, the preparation of practical manuals on cooperation, and the planning of a technical meeting on cooperatives to be held in 1958.