Ayorkor Botchwey attends leaders’ meeting of Pacific Island Forum

Ghanas foreign minister Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, is participating in a leaders’ meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum in Cook Island as a special guest.

The 18-member Forum in Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands, includes Australia, New Zealand and small island nations, among them Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga.

Earlier in the week, she signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on behalf of Ghana for the establishment of formal diplomatic relations, with the Cook Islands whose Prime Minister, Mark Brown, signed for his country.

Ghana is the second African country after South Africa to establish formal diplomatic relations with the Cook Islands.

Brown is also the chairman of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Ghana has a limited diplomatic footprint in the Pacific, but diplomats say relations with developing countries, however small or distant, are important for building and maintaining alliances for advocacy within multilateral institutions.

Ms Botchwey held several high-level meetings with Pacific regional leaders and discussed a range of issues