More from Giff Johnson

In the development world of Pacific governments and NGOs, overseas travel is little discussed but frequently undertaken. The list of events multiply each year such staff are able to spend close to half the year on the road — and frequently do. But how does this ongoing interruption affect services to the public?

Measures adopted by the European Parliament on a Comprehensive Fisheries Strategy for the Pacific were enacted without allowing sufficient consultation to be untaken first. But If the EU expected the Pacific to roll over for a no-consultation fisheries strategy, they should rethink their plans.

Is international migration the only solution for atolls, and internal migration the solution for coastal residents of high islands in the Pacific facing imminent climate change pressures? The flood of islanders migrating to the United States shows some problems and opportunities for improvement.

What is worse? Turning government planning and implementation over to consultants who drop in for a few weeks at a time, putting it in the hands of people without the tools or inclination to do it, or engaging competent locally based people to provide advice and then ignoring it?

Remote islands in the Pacific are littered with the detritus of renewable energy projects gone wrong. People need to look beyond the ribbon cutting after installation to the details of operations and maintenance to know if these substantial aid projects will still be providing benefits one or more years down the track.

A debate over United States donor aid to the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia is intensifying as island leaders chafe at controls being exerted by the United States government. Giff Johnson argues that sovereignty would be best expressed by action on MDGs, not rhetoric