Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Cook Island leaders and locals say they're proud to be hosting the forum.
RNZ Pacific's Eleisha Foon is in Rarotonga and spoke with Cook Islands' secretary of foreign affairs, Tepaeru Herrmann who fought for the forum to be in the Cook Islands.
They spoke about the preparations and significance of hosting the leaders' summit, symbolically in front of the memorial site where the forum's founding father Albert Henry is buried.
