In his presentation, President Nakao check marked the main objectives for ADB in the region: Private sector to take the lead in creating opportunities for growth; substantial infrastructure investments in communications, seaports and airports to reduce the high cost of doing business; institutional and policy constraints such as barriers to imports and slow and complex customs procedures to be addressed; expand opportunities for education which can promote innovation and develop the skills required for Pacific countries to engage globally; and Pacific islands to keep their unique cultures, social fabric and environmental beauty as they aim at greater integration.

Worth considering is President Nakao’s observation that while life expectancy has risen and average income has increased in the region in recent years, the flip side has seen a greater number of islanders facing hardships, increasing vulnerability of the islands to natural disasters, and the need for ‘renewed’ efforts to implement the eight Millennium Development Goals (to be replaced, next month, by 17 Sustainable Development Goals). A Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat report showed that 10 of 14 Pacific members failed to implement a majority of the eight MDGs, while three could not manage to implement a single one. This is a big red flag and suggests a leadership gap — or an absence of ‘champions’—that has prevented the region from delivering on health, education and poverty reduction goals despite massive foreign aid.

Official development assistance to the 14 independent Pacific nations doubled since 2002. ADB has kept abreast or even ahead of this trend. President Nakao confirmed that ADB’s assistance to the Pacific more than doubled in the last decade, with over US$2 billion in loans, grants and technical assistance approved from 2005 to 2014 compared to US$856 million from 1995 to 2004. Meanwhile, President Nakao emphasized that ADB is integrating ‘resilience’ to climate change and natural disasters ‘into everything we do in the Pacific.’

The lack of social, health and economic progress in many island nations, the increasing urban overcrowding that exacerbates vulnerability to poverty and disasters, and rising unemployment forces the obvious question: What benefit is the public receiving from this multi-billion dollar aid flowing into governments in our region?

In addition to asking what benefit the public is getting from this government aid largesse, another worth asking is, ‘Who is resilient in the Pacific?’ It is certainly not people in the urban centers, which are on the receiving end of most of this foreign aid. If container ships that bring imported goods stopped coming, villagers and outer islanders would survive because they are resilient, having self-reliance skills for survival on these islands. One hundred years ago, when a cyclone swept through, there was no International Red Cross or U.S. Agency for International Development to swoop in with food, water and other aid. Life was harder, but traditional systems were honed over centuries so that islanders could live on remote islands. These traditional systems, many of which are still in practice in rural areas, conserve coastal fisheries, manage agriculture crops, and govern teaching of navigation, canoe building and local medicine. We have a lot to learn about resilience from outer islanders, and should be incorporating traditional systems into resource management because they have worked for centuries.

A key challenge for many islands is that most aid projects are initiated by donors in conjunction with urban center-based government officials with little participation from outer islanders and local community leaders in addressing sustainability needs of their islands. A vestige of cargo cultism, often people think if it’s from the outside it must be better. When it comes to ‘resilience,’ however, this is not the case.

The World Happiness Report 2015 makes an important point about ‘resilience’ without actually using the word: ‘Countries with sufficiently high quality social capital appear to be able to sustain or even improve subjective well-being in the face of natural disasters or economic shocks, as the shocks provide them an opportunity to discover, use and build upon their communal links.’ Translated, this means people whose culture and bonds are strong, who work together as a way of life are better able to withstand problems that befall their islands. Like sharing fish from the day’s catch with your neighbors, you come together to fix a problem. Phrases in the Marshall Islands such as ‘kan dikdik kan yokwe’ (we share what little we have with love), ‘jiban dron’ (helping each other) and ‘jake jobol eo’ (share the wealth) do, in fact, govern life in the rural areas of the Pacific where culture remains the underpinning of life — in great contrast to the centers today.

Yet donors and recipient governments want to concentrate funding into cities or sub-centers because it is ‘very costly’ and more difficult to invest in services on outer islands or rural villages, a point emphasized by President Nakao. Still, if these remote areas are the backbone of our islands’ cultures and sustainable living, perhaps the most important question to ask is, are they worth saving? Because if we want to keep people on the outer islands, we need to get engaged in a ‘conversation’ about development needs and priorities on the outer islands instead of just giving things to them — solar lights, water catchment tanks, small fishing boats — as now typifies rural development projects. If maintaining this self-reliance strength is not a priority, then following current policy toward development will have the desired impact: In another 15 years, the remote islands will be empty, everyone gone to capital cities, where stresses on already over-taxed government services will multiply, or migrated out to the United States, Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere.

The donor aid cycle perpetuates itself: as more people leave rural locations, resilience declines, requiring more aid to boost resilience and help people find a way out of poverty that doesn’t exist to the same degree on remote islands. Maybe the important point to keep in mind is that current policies keep the aid industry chugging away. They are not expanding existing resilience and self-reliance but attempting to create it in an urban environment where dependency, corruption, and poverty combine to undermine most donor efforts at creating resilience that is already in place just a few miles away on another island. Island government departments that cheerfully jump on the aid bandwagon instead of pushing for island-centered development strategies that promote rural development to increase self-reliance are as much a part of the problem as the people arriving on airplanes with draft plans waiting on signatures to implement.

*This blog was updated by the author on September 18 from the original text posted on September 9, 2015.

The overlay of western-style democracies on centuries old customary practices—that emphasize consensus and harmony, while frowning on openly voiced criticism and complaint—is an ongoing source of tension in many Pacific islands in this modern era. While customary practices of non-confrontation and indirectness may serve the interests of wily political leaders, today’s leaders are confronted with two norms now prevalent in the region: Local populations are, after more than 30 years of political independence, accustomed to democratic practices that include the free exercise of individual rights; and the digital age, in fact the remarkable leaps in connectivity over just the past five years, has generated a level of public information availability and scrutiny of government performance that is unprecedented.

In today’s world, there are global reports on sustainable development, doing business, trafficking in persons, freedom of the press and religion, climate action, money laundering and tax havens, government bankruptcy and debt, and more. They are all now easily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. No longer can governments control the message, much as some may try. Perhaps more to the point, island governments that not only desire but actively seek benefits from engagement in the world community can, of course, cherry pick the advantages while ignoring the requirements of compliance to gain these benefits—but doing so means the country can suffer reputational risks or, in worst case scenarios, sanctions from other governments and aid agencies.

A couple of cases in point:

• The Marshall Islands suffered the largest demotion of any Pacific nation in the recently released World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report for 2015, dropping 25 points to a 139 ranking out of 189 countries evaluated. Likewise, the Marshall Islands was the only Pacific nation to be demoted to “Tier 3” (the worst level) on this year’s U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons report. Whether or not all people reading these reports accept these findings—certainly governments in the spotlight often dispute them vociferously—these reports are in the public domain for anyone to read. And when a country is receiving multiple negative reports, disputing these reports is both futile and lacking in credibility. In the case of the Marshall Islands, when it was listed on the trafficking report’s “Tier 2 Watch List” last year for the second year in a row, the Foreign Minister called the report “BS.” This year, government officials simply did not comment publicly on the trafficking report. On a positive note, efforts to deal with improving capacity to legislate, investigate, prosecute and enforce acceptable standards related to human trafficking have moved into higher gear in recent months, largely as the result of U.S. State Department funding to the International Organization for Migration, which is spearheading collaborative work with Marshall Islands government agencies to address a checklist of problem areas that should move the country off Tier 3. The question that needs to be asked, however, is why did the Marshall Islands government allow it to happen when it has the experience—it successfully removed itself from a global money laundering blacklist over a decade ago and has remained in good standing because of ongoing engagement on the issue—to avoid the demotion?

• The Nauru government’s actions over the past two years have hurt its reputation as a functioning democracy. Among other actions, it recently confiscated the passport of one member of parliament who is in the opposition, and suspended several MPs for speaking to international news media; it cut off access to Facebook for the country (joining such anti-democratic nations as Syria, China and Iran); deported or refused re-entry to two judges, fired its police commissioner, revoked a visa for the expatriate wife of an opposition MP, and made it difficult for opposition MPs to bring in Australian attorneys to represent them in court; and imposed a US$7,000 non-refundable application fee for journalists wishing to visit the island, effectively preventing journalists from covering developments in Nauru. Although these actions recently prompted both Australian and New Zealand leaders to speak with Nauru leaders about democracy issues at home, the Nauru government simply says these are domestic matters and it is following the rule of law. United Nations Special Rapporteur David Kaye, who visited the country earlier this year, had a different view, saying: “It should lift all restrictions to access Internet and social media, and facilitate access to the media in the country. Nauru should revise its course of action and take measures to fulfill its human rights obligations.”

The governance picture is certainly not all bad news in the region. A number of island governments are improving their international reputations by adhering to global governance standards. Papua New Guinea, for example, was the only Pacific nation on “Tier 3” human trafficking status last year, and improved to “Tier 2 Watch List” this year. The Federated States of Micronesia, similarly, was on the “Watch List” last year, and improved its standing to “Tier 2” in 2015.

For the most part, these global rankings evaluate what systems governments have in place to foster what can be described as good governance or best practices. We may not think we have human trafficking or money laundering happening in our countries, but if we have no process for investigating and asking the questions, who can say for sure? No government in the region condones illegal practices, such as human trafficking, but obviously simply being against something is not an adequate response in today’s world where trafficking, terrorist financing and worse are global problems with local ramifications.

The island norm of not asking questions and refraining from open confrontation—generally a necessity for functional democracies—may be most extreme in atoll nations, where getting-along at all costs is simply a requirement of life. Still, even the smallest of our islands need systems in place to promote democracy and accountability, and to reasonably ensure that illegal activities ranging from money laundering to trafficking are not happening. And if they are discovered, there is a mechanism in place for action.

Prior to the Internet age reaching the Pacific and the ramp up in global awareness of best practice systems, most of the Pacific islands were literally on the outer fringes of world consciousness. Not many knew what was happening in our islands, and even fewer cared. Not so anymore. And as countries in our region sign up to international conventions and treaties, take sides at the United Nations on key issues of the day, demand action on climate, fishery and other challenges from developed nations, and seek donor aid for development, there is a price to pay, not so much in dollars and cents, but in government responsibility to meet global good governance standards and in the public obligation to hold our governments accountable for delivering the benefits of this international engagement to people in the community.

Photo: Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands, by Megan Coe.

The SPC-EU project states on its website that it is ‘helping Pacific Island countries to improve the governance and management of their deep-sea minerals resources in accordance with international law, with particular attention to the protection of the marine environment and securing equitable financial arrangements for Pacific island countries and their people.’

The goal is laudable. The question is, can a donor that represents countries with mining interests protect and advocate for the rights of Pacific islands? It sounds like a serious conflict of interest, much as the PACER (Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations) negotiations are, with Australian funding providing training to Forum island officials, paying for island officials to attend PACER negotiations, and financing an Office of the Chief Trade Advisor. All of this creates its own industry, a legion of trade officials who have a vested interest in promoting trade negotiations, whether or not they are, in fact, in the interests of the different island nations.

Face the facts: Deep-sea mining potentially offers a serious economic opportunity for the islands, but one that by its nature is not sustainable for the long-term and comes with possibly serious environmental consequences. In addition, experience with onshore mining is limited to a few Melanesian countries, while deep-sea mining experience and legislation is embryonic, at best.

Why keep reinventing the wheel when we have experience and examples of regional cooperation that works? The best of these are in fisheries. The Forum Fisheries Agency is a good example of a regional body that has provided solid management, monitoring and surveillance for the Pacific tuna fishery that has worked for the interests of the islands. But the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) is probably the body that is the most relevant for deep-sea mining.

Instead of going it alone, with each country establishing its own legislation and negotiating deals with mining companies individually, why not use the PNA formula that shows how rights can be managed and, through a unified effort, maximized for all parties.

What should be happening at the regional level is discussion aimed at establishing regional or sub-regional agreements so that island nations can agree to minimum terms and conditions for deep-sea mining. Drawing on the experience with the Pacific tuna fishery, the region could be working to set minimum terms and conditions that could be enacted through implementing arrangements to ensure national legislation is not undermined and small island economies are not played off against each other and exploited inequitably. This is exactly what PNA is now doing with the tuna industry.

Given that the International Seabed Authority, which was established by the United Nations to regulate these activities and develop a mining code for management and monitoring of deep-sea mining, is already reported to be issuing licenses for the Pacific, the islands need to get a better grip on what is potentially a multi-billion dollar industry, with significant side effects. Do the islands get a decent return and find ways to successfully manage environmental problems?

It seems so obvious that what is needed is a Forum Leaders declaration to address deep-sea mining at the regional level, where agreed-to regional strategies can ensure fair returns for the islands.

The ability of PNA’s eight members to maintain unity in setting minimum prices for fishing days and enforce management measures for the tuna fishery has resulted in the PNA skipjack fishery holding the highest global certification for sustainability through the Marine Stewardship Council, setting a minimum price for access to fish, controlling fishing effort, establishing compulsory satellite-based surveillance, enforcing 100 percent observer coverage of purse seiners, and implementing other requirements. Of even more relevance to deep-sea mining is PNA’s restriction limiting the transshipment of catch to export carrier vessels in designated ports, where species composition and harvest tonnage are checked and verified. This also provides significant additional direct and indirect economic benefits to the island ports. Similar transshipment requirements should apply to deep-sea mining ore carriers so independent inspectors can monitor and verify volumes and types of ores being exported.

This is unlikely to happen in the absence of a regional approach to mining. Instead of continuing down the path of individual islands negotiating their own separate deep-sea mining arrangements with all the poor governance opportunities this presents, what does the Forum region have to lose by convening a meeting with the goal of establishing a regional deep-sea mining agreement? Member countries through PNA have experience in developing successful regional agreements that establish rules and minimum standards for resource management and exploitation — to the great benefit of their members. Let’s use this experience for the benefit of all the islands in the area of deep-sea mining.

With the Forum summit in Papua New Guinea just six weeks away, this is an initiative that needs the leaders attention and action.

Photo caption: The Parties to the Nauru Agreement management of the Pacific skipjack tuna industry has resulted in a five-fold increase in revenue to its eight members since 2010.

The complexity arises from two factors:

• The People’s Republic of China (mainland) maintains a “one-China” policy that does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a separate nation or accept ties with any nations that recognize Taiwan.
• Several Pacific islands have flip-flopped between the PRC and the ROC over the years.

Fortunately, the competition for diplomatic partners died down after current Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008 and pursued closer ties with the mainland. But there could be more behind-the-scenes machinations looming. In recent times we’ve seen Solomon Islands leaders courting Chinese investment with political overtones, and in the Marshall Islands leaders making unannounced visits to China that lead to speculation about stability of the relationship.

The relationship for Pacific countries that have alternated diplomatic recognition between PRC and ROC is akin to a man who has divorced his wife in favor of a new one. When he goes to meet the ex-wife without mentioning it to the current wife, tension results as can be seen over the years in any of the islands that have changed diplomatic ties with the ROC and PRC.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, island leaders angled to see which of the two would offer “the best deal” for diplomatic ties. The practice of checkbook diplomacy was chiseled into our consciousness. And with it, so-called “good governance” largely went out the window as political leaders bartered diplomatic recognition for benefits. As various media reports showed, the “benefits” often were in the form of “constituent funds” that provided large amounts of money to political leaders to use as they wanted, with no accountability attached. The Australian newspaper The Age, for example, reported in 2011 that Nauru politicians received thousands of dollars monthly in exchange for ties with Taiwan, while China distributed tens of thousands of dollars prior to an election in 2007.

Because of the diplomatic competition, both PRC and ROC are in a constant state of edginess about their island ties to the point of overbearing scrutiny of the tiniest nuance in word or deed of island leaders. In some islands, leaders have not hesitated to use this as an opportunity to seek more money from one or the other. But it is one of the clearest examples of corrupt practices in government, because “getting more” often simply means more for political leaders.

Instability that results from uncertainty in development aid or diplomatic partnerships causes interruptions in program and service delivery by government representatives whose work depends on or is supported by aid and technical support from one of these countries, and can tarnish the reputation of governments when, for example, auditors say they can not verify that the amount deposited to the government treasury was the actual amount received from a donor — which happened in an audit issued this year in the Marshall Islands. 

This diplomatic game makes it difficult for either PRC or ROC to enforce accountability in donor aid relations with their diplomatic partners. In the heyday of the checkbook diplomacy period in the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the word “accountability” in relation to Taiwan or PRC aid wasn’t in the vocabulary. Islands received their funding or soft loans with little-to-no performance requirement — which suits political leaders focused on their own interests over national development interests.

Since 2008 when Ma took office in Taiwan, this changed to a degree in ROC partner countries. Over the past several years, we’ve seen ROC Embassies and their Foreign Ministry requiring progress reports prior to release of funding — which has, on occasion, resulted in funds being held up because the governments, unaccustomed to having to show any results from donor aid or simply not having any results to show, have been late to produce reports. This last point is important to emphasize: Some Taiwan aid has been earmarked for such things as “outer island projects” or “new infrastructure” or some other purported development. But funds have actually either gone to pay for government workers’ salaries — not the projects stated — or been diverted by political leaders to something entirely different. One example of this is in the Marshall Islands, where Taiwan quarterly budget allocations listed hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new prison in Majuro over a several year period. Despite this being the case for many years, no new prison has been built.

The problem, however, is that if the PRC-ROC diplomatic competition swings back into gear, even these modest efforts at ensuring performance in regards to donor funding will likely be scrapped, since the overriding goal, particularly for Taiwan, is the diplomatic partnership. With the number of nations that recognize Taiwan now at 22, suffice to say Taiwan pays close attention to and honors its relations with these nations, six of which are in the Pacific (Nauru, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Palau).

China’s recent muscle flexing for territory in Asia is ruffling relations with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and the United States. It’s hard to believe that the resource-rich Pacific — with oil, forests, mines, fish and deep sea nodules — won’t soon be seeing greater interest from China given its current expansionist policy. ‘Greater interest’ will likely result in a resumption of the diplomatic dueling. Couple this with next year’s national election in Taiwan that current indications suggest is likely to result in President Ma’s party losing the executive branch and the environment may be primed for a resumption of the bad old days of competition for diplomatic partners in the Pacific region.

Caption: A Taiwan Navy marching band performing in the Marshall Islands, one of six islands with ties to the Republic of China.

Every week seems to bring a new revelation about un-democratic behavior by its national leadership undermining the rule of law. And despite denials this past week of bribery involving current Nauru government leaders by an Australian company, payoffs to political leaders are hardly a new phenomenon in Nauru, or indeed in the Pacific.

The justification advanced for ordering Digicel, Nauru’s single telecom service, to eliminate access to Facebook is as thin—‘to prevent access to pornography’—as the list of nations that ban Facebook, which includes such notoriously anti-democratic nations as N. Korea, Iran and China.

Should the region shrug this off as something we may not like, but it’s none of our business? After all, Nauru is just 10,000 people on a tiny bit of land in the central Pacific that, save for its now expanding Nauru Airlines, would be one of the most isolated countries in the world. In former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s immortal—if apocryphal—comment about Micronesia, ‘Who gives a damn?’

The Australian and New Zealand governments cared a lot about democracy, or lack thereof, in Fiji by imposing a slew of sanctions after then-Army Chief Frank Bainimarama’s coup in 2006. Many of these remained in effect for eight years until Fiji’s national elections last September. Nauru doesn’t have an army to mount a coup. Still, to date, Nauru’s current government has:

• Arrested and deported Nauru’s Magistrate Peter Law in January 2014 while Law was preparing an inquiry into the death of Justice Minister David Adeang’s wife, who burned to death outside the family home in April 2013. Nauru also cancelled the visa for its Chief Justice Geoffrey Eames to return to work from vacation last year.
• Fired its Australian police commissioner as an investigation into bribery allegations involving Nauru President Baron Waqa and Justice Minister Adeang was in progress.
• Directed Digicel to shut off access to Facebook for the nation and subsequently refused to let the general manager of Digicel back into the country.
• Suspended five opposition senators from the 18-seat parliament chamber over a year ago.
• Revoked the visa of Katy Le Roy, legal counsel to the Nauru parliament and wife of suspended opposition MP Roland Kun, so she cannot enter the country.
• Imposed a non-refundable US$7,000 application fee for any off-island journalist interested to visit Nauru, effectively preventing foreign media from visiting Nauru.

We might well ask, ‘what’s next?’ To date, only the United States government has issued a statement of concern over Nauru’s ban on Facebook.

Why is the Australian government mum on the subject of Nauru? Radio Australia last week quoted Nauru’s former Solicitor General, Australian Steven Bliim, discussing Nauru’s sacking of its previous police commissioner as his investigation into bribery of Nauru leaders by Australian company Getax was advancing. Bliim also briefed Australian government officials after leaving Nauru last year. He was surprised by their lack of interest. “The reaction of the politicians at the time was dismissive, indicating that it was purely an internal Nauruan affair, which seemed at odds with the sort of reaction that was taken, for instance, when the Fiji coups occurred,” Bliim told Radio Australia. “This wasn’t as overt as what happened in Fiji, but the effect of it has been very similar where the country has failed to abide by its own laws and it’s effectively taken steps to make itself not accountable.”

The self-interest of the asylum seekers holding facility on Nauru is clearly the driver of relations between Australia and Nauru now. Nauru is receiving significant funding from Australia for hosting the controversial facility and the Nauru detention center is a key element in Australia’s policy for interdicting refugees aiming for Australia.

The Nauru government has taken to issuing terse statements critical of media reporting as international scrutiny of these issues has expanded. Among these denials includes the assertion this past week that Nauru’s legal system is arguably the most independent, transparent and credible in the Pacific. But this assertion is far from reality. In point of fact, a 2012-2014 governance and transparency assessment of the judiciaries in the 14 independent Pacific nations by the Pacific Judicial Development Programme gives Nauru one of the lowest ratings in the region. The Marshall Islands was at the top in both 2012 and 2014 by meeting all 15 agreed-to indicators for transparency and governance in court operations, and Palau met 14 of these in 2012 and 15 last year. Nauru, however, met only two in 2012 and as of the latest update in April this year, had not filed a report on these indicators for 2014.

A United Nations Special Rapporteur last month raised concerns about recently adopted amendments to Nauru’s Criminal Code, and called on the government to withdraw the legislation restricting freedom of expression. New amendments prohibit use of language that is threatening, abusive or insulting in nature and has the intention to stir up racial, political or religious hatred—which critics say could be used to muzzle political opposition in the lead up to next year’s election.

“Nauru should allow free space for expression without fear of criminal prosecution,” said Special Rapporteur David Kaye. “It should lift all restrictions to access internet and social media, and facilitate access to the media in the country. Nauru should revise its course of action and take measures to fulfill its human rights obligations.”

Unless Nauru’s neighbors, including Australia and New Zealand, get involved in encouraging Nauru to adhere to democratic norms that prevail in this region—including unrestricted debates in parliament, open access to the Internet, and maintaining an independent judiciary—it seems likely the government of Nauru will continue undermining opportunities for its citizens to enjoy freedoms taken for granted in most democracies. This should concern the Pacific Islands Forum, which brings together leaders, governments and island communities over shared goals of democracy, good governance and accountability. Ignoring developments in Nauru undermines the Forum and island leaders’ stated objective of promoting regionalism and raising the quality of life based on the Pacific’s commitment to sustainable development and accountability of governments to their citizens.

After the usual preliminaries between a visiting reporter and a seasoned political figure, Mangefel offered a blunt evaluation of development progress in his nation. This was only a handful of years into the FSM’s first Compact of Free Association funding package with the United States and a period when producing five-year national development plans was the routine. ‘Western-style economic development won’t work in the FSM,’ Mangefel told me as we sat in his office in Palikir, the seat of the FSM government in Pohnpei. ‘Why not?’ was the obvious response. ‘It’s simple,’ Mangefel said. ‘In the FSM, if you work, you eat. If you don’t work, you still eat.’ His point was, of course, that there was little incentive for the 40-hour work week ethic required by strategic planners when local folks could eat at their uncle’s house anytime they wanted.

Although Mangefel was the national planner, in essence he was telling me that the lofty economic goals spelled out in the government’s five-year development plans wouldn’t be realized, not as written, not as carried out, for the fact that these paper documents had little relationship to the ‘lifestyle’—for lack of a better word—in the FSM, which mirrored how people lived in most islands in the region. Nevertheless, most people in government offices nominally charged with carrying out these development plans went through the motions of implementing western-style programs funded by donors, rarely offering as candid a view as the late Yap governor or attempting to reshape obviously unworkable plans. While island culture is often at odds with objectives laid out in modern planning, newer developments have added to the challenge of creating sustainable development or, even, delivery of essential health and education services.

Mangefel’s comment to me was 25 years ago. In the interim, a culture of overseas travel has engaged government workers, supported and funded largely by donors, that keeps many managers of government services away from their homes four—or more—months of the year. Needless to say, if you’re not at home, you’re not delivering a service or implementing development initiatives.

As the world and the Pacific prepare to embark later this year on a new 15-year regime of ‘Sustainable Development Goals,’ we need look no further than the record of ineffective implementation of the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ from 2000 to 2015. Ten of the 14 independent Pacific nations were unable to achieve a majority of the seven MDGs, and three failed to successfully implement a single one. So now the islands are signing up to implement 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This would be almost laughable were poverty and lack of opportunities not becoming a pervasive matter of fact in urban centers around the Pacific, exacerbating income inequality and causing a downward spiral in people’s quality of life.

And who, exactly, is going to implement government-approved strategic development plans? In my experience, it is a rare government worker who can avoid the offers of frequent international travel to stay at home and deliver work on the ground where it counts. In fact, the culture of travel and a general lack of engagement in creating a vision for national development has led to another, relatively new, phenomenon: that of handing the job of goal-setting and strategic planning to off-shore consultants who drop in for a few weeks at a time. For the most part, any plan that is not crafted by a range of the local citizenry, so-called ‘stakeholders’ at all levels of society, has no buy-in and even less chance of success. In fact, a classic example of how even locally-produced reports and recommendations are relegated to the waste basket was the Comprehensive Adjustment Program produced by local experts in the Marshall Islands under mandate of the president a few years ago. If government ignored recommendations of its own Comprehensive Adjustment Program task force, a largely homegrown effort, what level of implementation will result from strategies produced by expatriates?

These are challenges that face virtually every government and island group in the Pacific, be they independent or territory. The FSM, Marshall Islands and Palau have one additional development challenge unique to their relationship with the United States. By virtue of the Compact of Free Association, citizens of these nations have visa-free access to the U.S. to live, work and study. As island economies stagnate and lack of job and educational opportunities predominate, principally in the FSM and Marshall Islands, thousands of islanders are voting with their feet by transplanting themselves to U.S. states and territories. Various estimates suggest the number of FSM and Marshall Islands citizens living in the U.S. is between 30 and 40 percent of their populations. There is clearly a brain drain happening, particularly as islanders increasingly vacate remote outlying islands for the convenience first of urban centers and later for the U.S. But this is not necessarily a brain drain in the classic sense of western educated islanders seeking greener pastures. Yet this out-migration from the remote islands of people skilled in self-reliance and subsistence living is undermining hopes of a sustainable future because the only places in most Pacific islands that are self-sufficient to a high degree are the outer islands and rural villages—certainly not urban centers. Depopulate the villages and outer islands and what chance do islands have of implementing new Sustainable Development Goals?

If governments and donors that control the purse strings and access to technical assistance don’t start reinventing their development agendas and means of implementation, in 15 years’ time, we will again be lamenting the inability of our islands to make progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals soon to be adopted by the United Nations.

Image: Graham Crumb / www.imagicity.com

Speaking about Kiribati, Canadian climatologist Simon Donner commented in the Scientific American: ‘Right now it is clear that no one needs to immediately wall in the islands or evacuate all the inhabitants. What the people of Kiribati and other low-lying countries need instead are well-thought-out, customized adaption plans and consistent international aid — not a breathless rush for a quick fix that makes the rest of the world feel good but obliges the island residents to play the part of helpless victim.’

These same climate scientists who are conducting ongoing research in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands acknowledge the documented fact of sea level rise in the Pacific, and the potential threat this poses. But they are making the point, as articulated by Donner, that ‘the politicized public discourse on climate change is less nuanced than the science of reef islands.’

A recent report carried in Geology, the publication of the Geological Society of America, says Tuvalu has experienced ‘some of the highest rates of sea level rise over the past 60 years.’ At the same time, ‘no islands have been lost, the majority have enlarged, and there has been a 7.3 percent increase in net island area over the past century.’

To gain international attention to climate concerns and motivate funding to respond to what is described as climate damage, political leaders from the Pacific are predicting dire consequences.

The future viability of the Marshall Islands — and all island nations — is at stake,’ Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum told the global climate meeting in Peru last December.

‘It keeps me awake at night,’ said Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga in a recent interview. ‘Will we survive? Or will we disappear under the sea?’

Obviously, statements of island leaders at international meetings and the observations of recent scientific reports are at odds. Does it matter?

Comments Donner: ‘Exaggeration, whatever its impetus, inevitably invites backlash, which is bad because it can prevent the nation from getting the right kind of help.’

Scientists studying these low-lying islands should be seen as allies, whose information can be used to focus attention on key areas of need. For example, the New Zealand and Australian scientists working in Tuvalu said their results “show that islands can persist on reefs under rates of sea level rise on the order of five millimeters per year.” With sea level rates projected to double in the coming years, ‘it is unclear whether islands will continue to maintain their dynamic adjustment at these higher rates of change,’ they said. ‘The challenge for low-lying atoll nations is to develop flexible adaptation strategies that recognize the likely persistence of islands over the next century, recognize the different modes of island change, and accommodate the ongoing dynamism of island margins.’

Developing precise information on atoll nations as these scientists are doing is needed to inform policy makers and local residents as people are inundated with discussion about — and, possibly, outside donor funding for — ‘adaptation’ and ‘mitigation’ in these islands.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in the Marshall Islands hired internationally recognized scientists and medical doctors to advise it on such things as radiation exposure standards for nuclear test clean up programs and medical conditions deserving of compensation, while evaluating U.S. government scientific studies on the Marshall Islands. These scientists and doctors provided knowledge and advice that helped inform the compensation and claims process.

It seems this nuclear test-related model would be of significant benefit to islands in the region, by linking independent climate scientists with island governments so there is a connection between science and climate policies and actions of governments.

If we want to grab headlines, the ‘disappearing island’ theme is good. But to find solutions to, for example, the increasing number of ocean inundations that are occurring requires well-thought out plans.

‘The reality is that the next few decades for low-lying reef islands will be defined by an unsexy, expensive slog to adapt,’ wrote Donner in the Scientific American. ‘Success will not come from single land purchase or limited-term aid projects. It will come from years of trial and error and a long-term investment by the international community in implementing solutions tailored to specific locales.’ He comments that a World Bank-supported adaptation program in Kiribati took eight years of consultation, training, policy development and identifying priorities to finally produce a plan of action. And even then, when they rolled out sea walls for several locations, there were design faults that need to be fixed. Donner’s observation about Kiribati could equally apply to the rest of the Pacific: “Responding to climate change in a place like Kiribati requires a sustained commitment to building local scientific and engineering capacity and learning from mistakes.”

It is excellent advice.

Image: Low-lying islands, such as Majuro Atoll pictured here, are changing due to storms, erosion, high tides, seawalls and causeways, and sea level rise. But few are disappearing. Photo credit: Isaac Marty

Since 1986 when the first Compact of Free Association came into effect between Washington and the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau, citizens of these three freely associated states (FAS) have had visa-free access to the U.S. to study, work and live.

The tempo of out-migration picked up in the mid- and late-1990s, particularly from the FSM and Marshall Islands, as job markets remained stagnant, and health and education services declined.

When Guam Governor Eddie Calvo said at a Washington, D.C. meeting of governors in February that FAS citizens were pushing Guam government agencies ‘to the breaking point’, and said the problem was many in-bound FAS migrants were uneducated and unhealthy, it ratcheted up official state concern about migration to a new level. This follows the state of Hawaii’s decision reached late last year, supported by U.S. courts, to stop providing expensive dialysis and cancer treatment to most FAS citizens as of March 1.

Recent estimates suggest the number of FAS citizens now in the U.S. is approaching 100,000, though more and more are American citizens by virtue of birth in the U.S. The large numbers in Hawaii, Guam, Arkansas, Oregon and Washington, to name a few, are beginning to stand out with state agencies under budget pressure as they attempt to provide health and social services with dwindling resources.

Although officials from the FAS often attend meetings to discuss what is called ‘Compact impact’, there has been little engagement overall with these far-flung communities.

Noted Micronesia commentator Fr. Francis X. Hezel observed recently: ‘Some who have chosen to remain in the islands may think of the migrants as people who have deserted their homeland when things became tough. Sometimes political figures in FSM can put their own stamp on this position, as when they state that migrants have made their choice to leave and so should be left to take care of themselves without any help from FSM government. At times, political leaders seem to regard migrants as an embarrassment on the grounds that they bring unwelcome attention upon FSM. There are, of course, abundant stories of people getting tossed into jail, or filing for federal benefits within hours after they have landed. But the real problem for those FSM leaders may be that the very number of people leaving seems to be evidence that the problems back home haven’t been fixed: lack of jobs in a struggling economy, a mediocre educational system, and the absence of the advanced health care that many require.’

The fact that these islands have some of the highest rates in the world of tuberculosis, Hansen’s disease and diabetes tends to complicate the situation of FAS migrants in the eyes of officials providing services in U.S. areas.

What can and should be done to deal with both the legitimate budget concerns of areas such as Guam and Hawaii, and the legitimate needs of a group of people who are legally in the United States pursuant to a treaty from which the U.S. government derives numerous benefits? One major problem is that a U.S. law adopted in 1996 removed Medicaid health coverage for FAS citizens, which has put islanders at the mercy of state-level health care. Since a large number are uninsured and ineligible for federal or state health insurance programs, FAS citizens tend not to seek early health care because of costs. So many end up in emergency care situations, increasing hospital costs exponentially.

A paper published in the American Journal of Public Health last month, ‘Effect of U.S. policies on Health on Health Care Access for Marshallese Migrants’, argues that U.S. federal and state health policies should be changed to extend health care coverage to citizens of the Marshall Islands and other freely associated states legally living in the U.S. and its territories. ‘Marshallese persons and all Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants in the United States (should be) treated as equal and have access to affordable, quality health care.’ Given that for most other legal immigrants in the U.S., health benefits have been incrementally restored since the U.S. Congress cut off Medicaid in 1996, it is hardly an unreasonable recommendation.

An important point made by this paper written by three U.S. university-based Americans is this: ‘Securing health care coverage for Marshallese migrant children is an important part of improving the overall health of the Marshallese community.’ This observation equally applies on the home front in the FSM and Marshall Islands, which have been unable to get a grip on communicable and non-communicable diseases that are spiraling out of control. Greater focus on improving the health of citizens resident in the FSM and Marshall Islands would have a positive impact on how arriving FAS immigrants are perceived in the United States, as well as reducing costs.

There is no question FAS countries are benefitting from the migration opportunity provided by the Compact of Free Association. With few job opportunities and stressed education and health systems, what would the FSM and Marshall Islands do if the nearly 100,000 islanders now resident in the U.S. were still living at home? In addition, with thousands of FAS citizens now employed in the U.S., albeit largely in entry-level positions, it is resulting in remittances to families back home, which is a huge benefit as economic conditions in the islands have shown little improvement in recent years. FAS citizens also fill a gap in Guam and U.S. states: they are filling entry-level and factory jobs that many U.S. citizens don’t want. In addition, hundreds of islanders enlist in the U.S. military at a higher per capita rate than Americans, the U.S. military has control of a western Pacific ocean area nearly the size of the continental U.S., and the Reagan Test Site in the Marshall Islands is a key part of the Defense Department’s missile defense program.

One state-level intervention shows a model for successful engagement by U.S.-resident FAS citizens. The Oregon state-based CANN—the Compact of Free Association (COFA) Alliance National Network—engaged state legislators and the governor two years ago to gain passage of a law making FAS citizens eligible for the same state identification and driver’s licenses as other Oregon residents. A 2005 federal law blocked issuance of all but temporary ID to FAS citizens, negatively affecting their ability to get jobs and housing. CANN has now gained support from legislators for the introduction of legislation to provide health care to FAS citizens living in Oregon. Though the bill may face challenges, since it was introduced at the end of January it has gained support in the media and from American military veterans, among others.

Clearly legislation and policy action at the national level would help the needs of FAS citizens living in the U.S. and is preferable to mounting multiple state-level efforts. The Oregon model suggests that active engagement with media, the community, and legislators has a positive outcome. Generally, this type of engagement by FAS government or community leaders in relation to Guam and Hawaii has been lacking except as a reaction to negative publicity or budget cutting moves, such as Hawaii has now taken to cut its spending on health care services for FAS citizens.

Relative to citizens of other nations attempting to migrate to the U.S., the estimated 100,000 FAS citizens in the United States are barely a blip on the radar and would remain so even if the entire populations of the FSM and Marshall Islands, roughly 160,000, moved to America tomorrow. In many states, they are small minority, though not so in smaller places like Guam and Hawaii.

Since both the U.S. federal government and the FAS governments benefit from the provisions of the Compact, positive action on these issues is called for. Moreover, it offers the FAS governments more than some positive public relations to engage at the federal and state level for their citizens in America—it offers a platform for addressing other issues of concern within the free association relationship. The Oregon results suggest the benefits of engagement with legislators.

The two protests were for the same purpose—to focus global attention on fossil fuels’ contribution to climate problems—but with one significant anomaly: the oil rig targeted by Greenpeace was flagged in the Marshall Islands, one of several atoll nations at the forefront of an international campaign to cut back use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions.

This raises the question: Do small island nations that contribute little to the carbon problem globally need to change their ways as they are demanding of big nations? More specifically, is it hypocritical for an island nation to demand reductions in use of fossil fuel while at the same time profiting from business investments in fossil fuel?

Seven nations in the Pacific—the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Tonga and Nauru—operate government trust funds with significant offshore investment. Generally these are a mix of fixed income (government bonds), real estate and stock market investments. Because investments in the fossil industry have produced some of the greatest profits in the history of stock markets in recent years (except for the past several months as oil prices have declined), virtually all big funds have some investment in the fossil fuel industry. A number of island nations also operate ship registries, led by the Marshall Islands, which has the world’s third largest registry behind Panama and Liberia. Significantly for the Marshall Islands, a major portion of the tonnage it flags is oil tankers and drilling rigs.

The Marshall Islands has been at the forefront of the climate action campaign with Foreign Minister Tony deBrum and, more recently, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner making headlines globally calling for nations of the world to act to prevent a climate disaster already in progress. But governments in region with trust funds have not addressed the apparent conflict between profiting from the oil industry and demanding it be phased down.

While the Marshall Islands’ government has been silent at home on the issue, its voice internationally has grown greatly during Minister deBrum’s tenure in government since 2012. In recent months, however, the College of the Marshall Islands has taken up a campaign for divestment from the fossil fuel industry. The college has a small endowment fund of about a million dollars that is invested in the U.S. and global stock markets.

‘We will be crafting a policy statement for the Board of Regents so that the College of the Marshall Islands Endowment Fund is not investing in fossil fuel companies,’ said President Carl Hacker. ‘It is something we can do to contribute to the change that is desperately needed.’ Hacker said he was moved by researching what is being done globally to invest in climate-friendly corporations, and was particularly influenced by an article by Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu on divestment and climate change. Jetnil-Kijiner, an instructor at the College of the Marshall Islands, has been a force behind the divestment movement with the college community.

The Majuro-based college is already the country’s leader in renewable energy, and is getting ready to purchase electric vehicles. Over the past three years, it has slashed US$300,000 a year off its electricity bill by using solar and wind power. Like action to use renewable energy, divestment is an important area for action, Hacker said.

The college administration engaged its Student Body Association to get students, teachers and staff talking about climate issues during a “divestment week” series of events in November. During the week, SBA members went from class to class educating their peers about divestment. The students wrote essays, drew posters and participated in a public forum on the topic. The public event was titled ‘CMI and Divestment — putting our money where our mouth is.’

These events at the college underscored the thinking of students, faculty and administrators that even though the endowment fund of CMI is relatively small and divesting will not affect fossil fuel companies, the issue is about taking a stand on principle. The students’ message: CMI should not talk about climate change and then reap interest from its investments in fossil fuel companies that profit by producing and selling the one product that is the largest contributor to climate change—fossil fuels.

In response to the divestment campaign within the college, the CMI board of regents in December directed the administration to divest from fossil fuel companies within three years.The divestment campaign at the college hasn’t spread to national government investments and the ship registry. But at some point the government, indeed all governments concerned with climate problems, will be forced to address the contradiction in demanding reduced global reliance on fossil fuels while at the same time profiting from the fossil fuel industry.

Thanks to donor funding, many Pacific islands have installed solar equipment on far-flung islands, bringing electricity for the first time to thousands of islanders and reducing modest usage of fossil fuel for power. These Pacific island actions are largely symbolic in terms of global impact, but everything from use of renewable energy and fuel-guzzling vehicles to divestment—or not—from the fossil fuel industry send a message to the world about small island states walking the climate talk.

In the UNDP’s Human Development Report, only three Pacific nations rank in the “High Human Development” category, with Palau the Pacific leader at number 60 globally. Fiji (88) and Tonga (100) are the others. Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Vanuatu and Kiribati make it into the “Medium Human Development” list at numbers 106, 124, 131 and 133, respectively, while Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands tied at 157 join mostly African nations in the “Low Human Development” list. Other island nations were not evaluated.

Three of the seven Pacific nations evaluated by the U.S. State Department for Trafficking in Persons are on Tier 2 Watch List or Tier 3—indicating countries that are not in compliance with minimum standards under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. This includes Papua New Guinea (Tier 3) and the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands on Tier 2 Watch List.

Of the 14 Forum island countries, only five—Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Palau, and Tonga—are on track to implement a majority of the seven millennium development goals by next year, according to the Pacific Islands Forum. The other nine are managing to make progress on only one or two MDGs or, as with Papua New Guinea, are off-track on all seven.

Are these reports useful to Pacific island governments? Do they contain information that should be used by individual governments as a basis for improvement?

The short answer is, “yes.” Since performance audits tend to be few and far between, how islands are doing in development, business, trafficking, health and education are key public interest questions. Trying to outrank developed nations that are in the top 10 of various global studies is not a likely scenario for any island nation. But moving from the bottom half of a list to the top half shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for many islands in our region.

One of the challenges is that while there are now reams of data available on country performance in every category—both from these international rankings and from domestic planning and statistics offices—political leaders in many island nations grew up in an era where there was little data available and decision-making based on performance indicators and information was virtually impossible. So decisions were made based on whatever set of assumptions leaders brought to the table.

Today, United Nations agencies and big donors in the region such as the United States, Australia and Japan are all aiming for performance, poverty reduction, and invigorating moribund economies heavily dependent on donor aid and government employment. Yet many of our decision makers discount the data being provided.

A classic example was the report for the Marshall Islands, “Juumemmej: Republic of the Marshall Islands Social and Economic Report 2005,” which was attacked by the country’s ruling party in parliament for bluntly talking about poverty and other social problems in the country. Despite the presentation of significant data to support its observations and recommendations, the report was largely discounted by political leaders.

Occasionally, however, governments use these performance reports to galvanize action. In the late 1990s, the Marshall Islands was placed on a global money laundering blacklist by the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF). Because of the significant harm this blacklisting had on banks and business and government operations in the country, an inter-agency group was organized to address the problem. The government brought together such entities as the Banking Commissioner, local banks, National Police, Attorney General’s office, Trust Company of the Marshall Islands (which manages a ship registry and an offshore corporate registry) to deal with the FATF report. It took about two years of concerted legal work, updating laws, putting various anti-money laundering mechanisms in place, training police to investigate financial crimes, engaging with the international community on the issue, and so on. It produced a positive result: the Marshall Islands was removed from the blacklist and has stayed off because of continued engagement.

During November, a newly established government Office of Commerce and Investment in the Marshall Islands called together government ministry and agency representatives and also local government mayors to review the World Bank’s Doing Business report 2015 on the Marshall Islands. There is no reason the Marshall Islands couldn’t have a better ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. But government legislation, policies and actions are what determine the ranking. What businesses need—Pacific wide—is not more rhetoric from government about how it supports the private sector. They need government agencies and departments to work together to streamline and improve their operations to make life easier for businesses, and put the needs of the private sector, not their government offices, as the priority.

The Office of Commerce and Investment’s proactive response to the World Bank’s report card on doing business in the Marshall Islands is one of the only a handful of times over recent years that the government has taken steps to address this type of performance evaluation. Often, task forces have been established by government, research conducted, reports written, recommendations submitted. And then—nothing. The reports are simply ignored and time renders them moot.

No doubt this situation is hardly unique to the Marshall Islands. Whether proactive government agencies or those in the non-government sector can get the support at the political level to make legislative and policy changes needed to improve government services and performance only time will tell as the information and performance era is up against the thinking of many politicians who are not prone to taking action based on words in a report.