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pacificpolitics.com is our new home for news an analysis of the Pacific by bloggers and reporters highlighting the important issues in the region. Click to find the latest coverage of news, politics, economics and culture from PiPP’s regional network.

PiPP is proud to introduce our latest contribution to informing and empowering policy makers and political junkies alike. With features from journalists and commentators throughout the region, we hope to be able to provide more and better insight into the stories that define this region.

This week on Pacific Politics, PiPP catches up with Benny Wenda as his world tour reaches the Pacific. We track the political manoeuvring inside and outside Vanuatu’s parliament, and we ask whether Fiji’s appeal to the people really is direct democracy.

PiPP is proud to introduce our latest contribution to informing and empowering policy makers and political junkies alike. With features from journalists and commentators throughout the region, we hope to be able to provide more and better insight into the stories that define this region.

Vanuatu goes to the polls on October 30th in its first election in four years. PiPP is following the election closely and will provide up to the minute news and analysis of the election and its outcome.

Review by Ben Sims

The 2^nd Edition of the Climate Vulnerability Monitor was launched last month on the sidelines of the 67^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Monitor has sobering figures: 5 million people are currently estimated to die annually due to climate change and the carbon economy, 100 million people are expected to die by the end of the next decade, and under the most likely parameters the monetary cost is expected to reach 3.2 per cent of GDP by 2030.

Developing countries will face the majority of these impacts, and Pacific states are amongst the nations facing the most severe costs relative to GDP.

The report was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerability Forum (CVF), a bloc of countries – including Kiribati, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – identifying themselves as being ‘among the most vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change’. The CVF uses its collective voice to push for stronger action in the international system, and has been active in the UN system, including at Rio+20 and the climate change conferences, since its establishment in 2009.

The Monitor provides a global overview of the current and future costs in 2030 resulting from both climate change (such as sea level rise and droughts) and impacts of the carbon economy (for example, indoor pollution and oil spills). These costs are broken down into a number of categories in the report: industry change, natural disasters, habitat change and health impacts.

From this wide-scale assessment, the Monitor has successfully illustrated how pervasive and expensive the impacts of climate change and carbon pollution are globally.

While global reports are useful for rallying support at important international meetings, such as the upcoming Doha Climate Change Conference, the Monitor lacks detail and is probably inaccurate at the country level in the Pacific.

The Pacific features prominently in the CVF, yet the region’s plight is poorly articulated by this report.

For example, Kiribati is predicted to have one death per year in 2030 due to climate change induced hunger. And perhaps more erroneously, this report suggests that there will be no increase in hunger mortality from the current estimate, also at one death per year.

When I travelled to Kiribati last month on a research assignment for PiPP, I was told that there were people being hospitalised because they were malnourished. Determining the cause of current hunger is difficult, but one does not require advanced statistical models to postulate that hunger will increase due to climate change in Kiribati.

While data in Pacific microstates is notoriously difficult to come by, inaccurate estimations may result in resource allocations away from the most pertinent issues if domestic decisions are made based on the data from influential reports such as this. From a cursory glance, there appear to be a number of other poorly substantiated estimations on other Pacific island countries, and the use of more accurate, up-to-date data would help improve the legitimacy of future Monitor reports.

This weak approach towards the Pacific is not unique to the Monitor, but is symptomatic of the focus given to our region in most international reports.

Often it seems that the Pacific is tacked onto Asia for no better reason than hyphenation. Globally focused reports are useful, particularly for global collective action issues such as climate change, but care ought to be taken when assessing specific regions, sub-regions, and states.

Different sections of the report are available, and the full report can be read here [36 MB].

A 2011 report published by the Internet Society (ISOC), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

http://www.internetsociety.org/localcontent

Reviewed by Dan McGarry

The phrase ‘interdisciplinary research’ is far too often code for ‘do not read’, implying a lack in all trades more than a mastery of one. This research report is a notable, worthwhile exception. It draws together expertise and genuinely useful data from technologists, economists and social scientists and still manages somehow to convey a coherent, intelligible and useful message.

That message is simple enough: “[T]here is a strong correlation between the development of network infrastructure and the growth of local content, even after controlling for economic and demographic factors.”

In layman’s terms: Investment in local internet capacity leads to more locally relevant content, which in turn tends to drive demand for local internet capacity. Improved local capacity leads to lower international internet costs (and therefore greater capacity). Follow-on benefits include improved functional literacy rates and lower costs in creating, storing and sharing locally relevant material.

One of the greatest benefits of this research is that it confirms in finite, measurable ways what many of us have long felt to be true. Internet development benefits from supply-side approaches, and more really is merrier where infrastructure is concerned. That said, there are several quite sobering graphs and charts which show in no uncertain terms the breadth of the disparity between developed and developing nations. Happily, the authors refrain from wallowing in the morality of the now-clichéd Digital Divide and focus on measuring the nature and effects of infrastructure investment in numerous economies in varying stages of development.

Here is one of the more interesting charts in the study:

These are global numbers, of course; the disparity between prices Pacific islanders pay and those paid in the developed world is even greater. But it provides us with a couple of inescapable conclusions: first, no matter what we do, broadband infrastructure in the Pacific isn’t ever going to resemble what we see today in the developed world. There is simply no way we can affordably deploy fibre to every home, for example.

We have to conclude, therefore, that in addition to developing local content, we’ll also have to develop our own pool of planners and strategists. While data-rich reports like this offer us a great deal of guidance in general terms, they require translation into the Pacific’s unique context.

Ongoing regional efforts such as the joint South Pacific Community/University of the South Pacific ICT strategy are commendable and do provide high-level returns, but they’re often limited by a lack of engagement on the part of decision-makers and a low-information environment, which make it difficult to grab and hold people’s attention long enough to perform proper top-to-bottom planning.

This report’s simple messages might help to mitigate this attention deficit. Based on its findings, we can infer several clear, simple and eminently practical recommendations that are of immediate value to decision-makers across the Pacific. A few examples:

• Given that the Pacific ‘last mile’ of connectivity is almost inevitably going to be completed using wireless technology, radio frequency spectrum management and allocation can be used to encourage maximum competition and therefore consumer uptake.
• Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), where local carriers can transit traffic between themselves, have obvious economic and social benefits, because they enable low-cost, higher-bandwidth data flows between local residents and businesses. And this report indicates that increased uptake is good for telcos and internet service providers because it leads to increases in international traffic as well. In short, investing in the health of the market is good for the economic health of the players within it, too.
• Local content, infrastructure development and access prices are interdependent. Collectively, they seem to form a ‘virtuous circle’ in which each one enhances the other. Pacific economies would therefore benefit from governments widening their focus beyond infrastructure development to include local content as a priority development area. E-Government programmes are an obvious starting point, with open data policies providing the quickest results.
• ICT equipment is expensive, disproportionately so for Pacific islanders. Reducing tariff and tax revenues from these erstwhile luxury items is a simple, effective way of improving access. Likewise, encouraging ‘sideways’ labour mobility (i.e. easing employment restrictions for Pacific IT experts) could also reduce costs and improve efficiency in developing and delivering local content.

Non-technical technology research often suffers from the fact that IT is increasingly a commodity, a small-but-integral part of pretty much everything we do. But it’s not nearly as simple to manage, even in straight-up engineering terms, as a water or electrical power system, for example. It requires top-to-bottom engagement and expertise, and its innate complexity makes it easy to misjudge, especially for those whose expertise lies in different areas.

It’s a rare delight, therefore, to see a report that manages to retain its focus and clarity while still straddling IT, economics and social science. More the to the point, it’s one of those rare bits of research that is immediately useful. If you do nothing else, read the cover page, and take comfort that the findings listed there are backed by solid, well-researched data.

Shane Drumgold, 2011, (imprint: Shane Drumgold) ISBN: 978-0-646-56772-3

Reviewed by Tess Newton Cain

This book provides a very particular and personal view from inside Operation Helpem Fren, otherwise known as the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, or RAMSI. This Australian-led mission has been part of the landscape of Solomon Islands since 2003, so Drumgold’s book is very much a snapshot of a particular time (January 2006 to February 2007). After the initial mission to restore peace, RAMSI scaled back its military input and moved to utilising (mostly Australian) civilian expertise to rebuild the legal sector and other elements of the machinery of government. Drumgold’s account raises more questions than it answers and is open to challenge on numerous fronts, but is a compelling read for anyone who cares about law, justice, Pacific development and the points where these converge and/or clash.

Shane Drumgold was in Solomon Islands from January 2006 to early February 2007 as part of Phase II of RAMSI. He was one of a number of Australian law and justice professionals working in various parts of the sector (including policing, public law offices and correctional services) following: ‘a statebuilding agenda underpinned by a security guarantee, concentrating on public finance and economic policy, law and justice, accountability, and policing’ (Partnering for Peace, p 30).

While his narrative highlights a number of dualities, perhaps the most striking is between Drumgold’s emotional responses to his professional and personal circumstances and his struggle to maintain the detachment required to work effectively in the legal sector.

In terms of his personal story, the most dramatic part of Palm Tree Justice is his account of the riots of April 2006, the fear he felt for himself and his family, their dramatic departure from the country and the subsequent emotional fallout. Drumgold returned to Solomon Islands alone to complete his contract, and the remainder of this book is devoted to a description of his work as a public defender.

Drumgold documents a number of cases in which he found –or, more accurately, brought– himself into conflict with other RAMSI actors in the criminal justice system. Conflicts arose over human rights issues such as the use of handcuffs in courtrooms, conditions and treatment of inmates in Rove prison and the non-observance of legislated amnesty provisions for those involved in the conflict that necessitated RAMSI in the first place.

He portrays himself as something of a lone crusader employing forensic and advocacy skills in a never-ending quest to uphold the rule of law and principles of justice in an environment that was at best challenging and often downright hostile. There were some successes along the way, although as he notes they mostly arose from the impact of bringing these issues to light in a public forum rather than because of landmark legal decisions: ‘Anything I was going to achieve was going to be by the process rather than the outcome’ (p 84).

But his approach was, in his view, not widely shared:

‘The role of RAMSI was not only to provide police and trial lawyers it was to develop and strengthen the entire system of justice. Exactly what this meant was very subjective and I soon realised that I clearly had a view different to most’ (p 75).

It is not surprising (although Drumgold claims to have found it so) to learn that his courtroom crusading did not endear him to other members of the RAMSI contingent. At the conclusion of the case of John Ross and others v the Attorney General, in which he cross-examined the Australian commandant of Rove prison for an entire day, he notes that:

‘I was acutely aware that I had not made friends among my RAMSI colleagues. Since the riots and my separation from my family, however, I felt that I no longer wanted to be in the Solomons and longed to go home. Being in a place you really do not want to be has the advantage that being kicked out of it is not the worse thing in the world, far from it, but I was not prepared for the social ostracism that followed the case. I found myself on my own at most RAMSI social gatherings’ (p 95)

Although Drumgold claims to have made some meaningful attempts to appreciate  – both personally and professionally – the social and cultural environment in which he was operating (and there is no reason to suppose he did not), it is evident that his success in this area was limited. The brevity of his stay in Solomon Islands is a contributing factor to this and he acknowledges in several places that such a complex environment remained largely a mystery to him just as it did to other RAMSI personnel.

The criminal justice system bequeathed to the Solomon Islands by the former colonial administration is by its very nature adversarial. Drumgold himself is a former prosecutor, and his work as a defence lawyer led to inner conflict as well. But there are other dualities or pluralities which are much more striking in the context of the RAMSI’s impact on Solomon Islands. One is the pluralist nature of Solomon Islands law, an often uncomfortable mix of legislation, Anglo-Welsh common law, domestic case law and customary law and practice which can be observed in other Pacific island countries.  Drumgold highlights the clash between custom and law, describing a case that was a resurrection of events that had taken place during 2001, at the height of the ethnic tensions. Steven Mark Moru v. R. (a murder case) was eventually discontinued by virtue of nolle prosequi (an election by the prosecution to discontinue the present case but retain the right to recommence proceedings at a later date), after a key prosecution witness failed to appear. Whilst this came as a surprise to Drumgold, it really should not have because his client had already given him the heads up:

‘Things work strangely in the Solomons. I went to the cells in the High Court in the morning of the trial to give Moru my usual speech about how things would progress during the trial. He told me that Hura would not be coming to give evidence. I was taken aback, “How do you know that?” “Because compensation has been paid” he answered as though he misunderstood my question, “and the matter is finished”…I told him that I should still run through the trial with him in case he was wrong. In a wise and slightly patronising way, he put his hand on my shoulder and said “No worry bro, hem true.”’

Most significant, though, is the fundamental failure to align RAMSI’s ‘Australian’ approach with the realities of life in Solomon Islands –a culturally distinct Pacific island country in a post-conflict phase with the added challenges that brings. Drumgold laments the narrow vision of ‘the key RAMSI players’:

‘Most seemed content simply to impose the values, views and prejudices of white middle-class Australia upon the actions of a third-world people, a people experiencing the growing pains that all new nations experience at the same stage of development’ (pp 291/292)

The most puzzling omission from this account is the political backdrop at the time of Drumgold’s tenure in Solomon Islands.  The author makes reference to heightened tensions between the Howard government of Australia and Manasseh Sogavare’s government in Solomon Islands, but at no point does he specify that the crux of this conflict was Sogavare’s strongly-voiced opposition to the extradition of Julian Moti, whom he had appointed as Attorney-General, the most senior law officer in the country. It is surprising that this issue does not even rate a mention in a book that is so embedded in the legal system and its practices at the time.

Drumgold admits freely that with his family back in Australia he focused almost exclusively on his work. His desire to simply finish his contract and leave certainly seems to have fuelled an approach that could be deemed robust, crusading or maverick depending on where the commentator might be standing. Drumgold wears his heart on his sleeve and it is open to question as to whether that is necessarily a good thing for a law officer. Nonetheless, no matter what the assessment of Drumgold’s personality might be, there is no denying that he has exposed some serious questions about the impact of the RAMSI mission on the overall state of law and justice in Solomon Islands at that time and subsequently.

PiPP Research Associate Toby Ley reviews Peter Larmour’s latest book; a work as topical as it is approachable. Drawing on a variety of sources, the book is brimming with both entertaining anecdotes and in-depth examples of corruption throughout the region. Larmour’s examination of corruption, culture and politics is a must read especially for development partners hoping to gain a more nuanced understanding of the unique circumstances in the Pacific Islands.