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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

Pacific Islands

Gender in the Pacific: Can a report help improve equality?

Submitted by Katherine Patrick on Thu, 2012-04-12 15:15

As a junior member of the team who produced the forthcoming East Asia and Pacific companion to the World Development Report 2012 “Toward Gender Equality in East Asia and the Pacific”, I was excited to present its findings in the Pacific. After spending months reading, writing, reviewing and revising our findings and content, I had a plethora of questions waiting to be answered about the impact of our work:  How would our audience receive it? Will our findings, based on painstakingly collected data and research, be adapted to the reality of gender and development in their country?  Will they be able to use these reports to continue working toward gender equality in all aspects of life? Will our reports help people, namely women, lead more productive and fulfilling lives?

Last month I went to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji with the rest of the team to share and discuss our findings with members of government, the media, civil society, students and our donor partners.

Samoa after the disaster: The wave of fire and the kid called Tsunami

Submitted by Aleta Moriarty on Thu, 2012-03-22 23:00

In June 2009 Samoa was the set for the popular TV program Survivor. It was a fantastic choice. It is one of those picture-perfect places–shady palms, trees dripping with fruit, blossoming hibiscus, all framed by powder sand beaches. It is a vastly understated paradise.

A few months later, the country was once again centre stage. This time for something utterly distressing and heart-breaking as the country embarked on the harrowing search for real life survivors after they were struck by a powerful tsunami on 29 September 2009.

Galu afi means “wave of fire” and is the traditional Samoan word used to describe a tsunami. It describes the force that gains momentum as the wave generates and the sheer destruction that it brings to bear. That is what happened here.

Hybrid Courts in East Asia & Pacific: A recipe for success?

Submitted by Peter Chapman on Thu, 2012-02-16 12:36
Daru Village Court in Papua New Guinea

What accounts for whether hybrid courts stick as relevant and useful institutions, as opposed to withering as a ‘neither-nor’ – neither regarded as a familiar community mechanism, nor as having the full backing of the state? In my previous blog entry, “History of Hybrid Courts in East Asia & Pacific: A ‘best fit’ approach to justice reform?”, I discussed the emergence of hybrid courts. In this post, I’ll raise three elements which seem to be essential characteristics of successful hybrid court systems: legitimacy, effectiveness, and flexibility.

The search for King Solomon's gold continues in his namesake Islands

Submitted by Alison Ofotalau on Mon, 2011-09-19 17:44
The Goldridge Mine pit in Solomon Islands

History records that the first European to come to Solomon Islands, Alvaro De Mendana, in 1568 gave the archipelago its name because he believed this area of the South Pacific was where King Solomon got the gold he used to build the Temple of Jerusalem. The Spaniards did search for gold during their exploration of the islands, but somewhat fruitlessly such that they left and never returned.

Less is sometimes more: Public finance reform in Kiribati

Submitted by Tobias Haque on Tue, 2011-07-19 18:41

Kiribati isn’t your usual country. It’s unusually beautiful, for a start, especially from the air, on a bright clear day, with the dazzling blues and greens of tropical sea and jungle. Its geography is also unusual, consisting of 32 atolls, and one coral island, spread over an almost-inconceivable 3.5 million square kilometers of ocean. The highest point on the main island, Tarawa, is a mere 3 meters above sea level, and driving down the country’s largest road, you can frequently see ocean on both sides. Kiribati is one of the smallest countries in the world, with a population of just over 100,000 people, and the country is also poor – with average incomes of around $1,800 per year.

Why don't we see social accountability in the Pacific?

Submitted by Nicholas Menzies on Tue, 2011-07-12 13:12
Click image to enlarge
Transparent notification of fees on the main door of a rural church-run hospital in Western Province, Papua New Guinea.

From participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil (pdf) to health clinic scorecards in Uganda social accountability mechanisms are a familiar feature of the development landscape across most regions of the world…so why not in the South-West Pacific?

One reason service delivery is poor in many Pacific states is that the same challenges that make it difficult to deliver services also make it difficult for officials to go out and account for them - dispersed populations; high transport costs; and a limited number of trained officials to supervise. This lack of oversight by government officials contributes to shoddy or non-existent services.

Can social accountability make up for some of the shortcomings in government accountability? Social accountability is the fostering of direct linkages between citizens and service providers. It can be thought of as working both prior to the delivery of a service (for example, residents meet with local government officials to set budgets so that spending aligns with community needs) as well as after a service has - or has not - been delivered (such as a complaints mechanism for residents to report police who fail to respond to calls for help).

Travelling great distances to improve lives of rural Solomon Islands communities

Submitted by Alison Ofotalau on Mon, 2011-06-20 12:47
Map courtesy of Wikipedia through a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Taking development to the outlying provinces of Solomon Islands is not an easy ride. I found this out when going on a site visit to the Rural Development Program (RDP) at the country’s far western province of Choiseul.

At the Northwest region of Choiseul province where the island faces open waters that span to the Micronesian archipelago of the Pacific lies a village called Polo. The Polo community has a primary school that was established in 1957 when Solomon Islands was still a British Protectorate, prior to independence in 1978. Since its inception, the Polo school never had a permanent classroom building until two years ago when through the RDP participatory process, the community identified the school as their main need.

Rebuilding paradise – Samoa's recovery from the 2009 tsunami

Submitted by Tobias Haque on Thu, 2011-04-21 15:44

On the surface, the pace of life in the Pacific island country of Samoa is slow. Island time. That’s an impression that’s reinforced when touring the idyllic string of resorts and beach fales (small timber and thatch tourist cottages, often without walls and open to the tropical breeze) along the South East coast of Upolu, Samoa. You can watch the heat rise in a haze across the ridiculously tranquil blue waters and golden sands, as coconut palms wave, and tourists enjoy a weekend drink in the seafront restaurant of the locally-owned and recently rebuilt Tafua beach fales.

Delivering in the remotest islands: Tikopia

Submitted by Edith Bowles on Tue, 2011-04-19 13:02
William Kesi
Because boats to and from Tikopia are infrequent, William Kesi had to wait a couple of months before he could leave the island.

William Kesi had to hitch a ride with a passing cruise ship to get from Tikopia back to Lata, the capital of Solomon Islands’ easternmost province, Temotu. William is a community helper with the Solomon Islands Rural Development Program (RDP), which uses community driven development to support small-scale community infrastructure. The program was officially launched in 2008, and is supported by Solomon Islands Government, AusAID, European Union, IFAD, and the World Bank. Now in its third cycle of grants, the program is beginning to reach not only the more densely populated areas of the six main islands of the country, but also some of the most remote and underserved communities in the country.

Looking to the skies in Kiribati—La Niña and rainfall variability in the Central Pacific

Submitted by Carlo Iacovino on Tue, 2011-01-25 15:47
Rainfall is essential to recharge the freshwater lens that lies beneath coral atolls in Kiribati. Without it, the i-Kiribati people would not be able to grow plants and crops vital to their livelihood.

Freshwater can be extremely scarce in the Republic of Kiribati, home to over 100,000 people scattered across 22 islands in the Central Pacific. Each year after a long dry season, significant rainfall is generally expected to arrive during November or December. Yet over the last few months only a tiny amount of rain has fallen. The islands are dry.

This is consistent with forecasts that predict La Niña conditions will result in below normal rainfall during the 2010-11 wet season across the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati.