Comments

As Uni Melbourne my SIA&Eval Masters level class trains upwards of 200 SIA practitioners a year (and we are not alone). Some have gone on to great consultancy and academic roles. But few go into government regulatory systems, I guess for the reasons you explain. And when they do, providing negative appraisal and monitoring of a government-supported mine, for example due to finding social vulnerability or environmental injustices, can be difficult.

The Purari river system is a life source for the people of Purari, so you see how it is very important to the people of Purari and a concern of tribesmen.

Hi Kate and Sophie, many thanks for your informative article. I recall visiting both Boigu and Saibai when i was working for the Cth Dept of the Environment in the mid-2000s administering the Natural Heritage Trust. Nothing to do with health, but the day I was on Boigu, the health clinic was in full swing and the local Papuans had come across the channel for their health check-up. It was a busy day, and I know some patients were flown to Cairns by medivac flights for medical treatment for TB. At that time, if i recall directly, the Qld and Cth govts funded the medical services on those islands because that was the 'frontline' to prevent the spread of TB into the rest of the Torres Strait and far north Qld. I hope that is still the case.

How can I get my birth certificate and passport? Can you please help me?

We would have to ask the following: • Can Pacific Island Countries (PICs) be considered as rich if their economies depend on earnings from workers in other nations? • Can PICs be considered wealthy when much of their economies’ income comes from rents, such as remittances, aid, fish licence fees, and earnings from Sovereign Welfare Funds, all of which—except remittances—are received by governments and, as records show, are poorly invested in domestic economic and social development? • Has PIC's reliance on rents, including labour exports, maintained a poorly performing, 'upside down' economy: https://micsem.org/video-listing/the-upside-down-economy/ that remains permanently dependent on aid and rents? Additionally, has this also diminished the need for, or policy commitment towards, domestic efforts for growth? • Are PIC societies wealthy if they have to rely on losing family members overseas, and in the long run, possibly sacrificing their unique languages, culture, identity, and purpose? • The influx of foreign workers to replace departing nationals can be substantial. In 2021, the population of the Cook Islands included an estimated 1,450 persons from other Pacific and Asian countries, about 10% of the total. In Palau (2020 census), one-third of the population were non-Palauan nationals. It has also recently been estimated that between 50,000 and 80,000 workers emigrated from Fiji between 2023 and 2024. This is a significant number, given that the total labour force in Fiji was estimated at just over 376,000 in 2022. • Pacific Rim countries might gain from PIC migration, but PIC domestic businesses and governments complain about losing their workforce, whether skilled or unskilled, which can increase the cost of PIC labour, threaten the competitiveness of domestic industries, and weaken the quality of government services. • Are donor development programmes that have long supported PIC domestic growth and now support the importation of PIC labour inherently contradictory? • While the three countries mentioned have high migration and high incomes per capita, others do not follow this pattern. RMI and FSM, both with high migration, have similar COMPACT resources as Palau but do not have high per capita incomes. Tuvalu, Tonga, and Samoa have also experienced high migration, and while Tonga and Samoa have received high remittances, neither has achieved high GDP per capita like the Cook Islands, Niue, or Palau. • Can the populations of the Cook Islands, Niue, Palau, and other PICs be considered stable when they face a significant and growing imbalance between a shrinking local workforce and a rising dependent population, driven by high rates of emigration—particularly in Polynesia—high youth unemployment in Melanesia, and an increasing number of elderly people? • Remittances alone are not a primary driver of growth; if they were, Tonga and Samoa in particular would consistently outperform other Pacific countries. Remittances certainly impact the lives of families and individuals who receive them, either directly or indirectly through family systems. However, if they are mainly spent on imports, the multiplier effect is low and adds little to GDP, at most reflecting the value-added between the import cost and retail price, minus intermediate expenses. • We do not deny that remittances are important for poverty alleviation and the wellbeing of recipients, but we must remember that in almost every PIC, the number of families not receiving remittances is considerably higher than those receiving them. Consequently, most families depend on domestic economies for their livelihoods. Without domestic economic growth and increased employment opportunities, those not receiving remittances are more likely to fall further into hardship unless governments boost private sector investment and create more domestic jobs. • The answer is domestic growth. Domestic growth is better for the economic, social, and cultural health of the PICs, but remove the aid and rents, and what has been the record of growth and the record of donor and development partner aid programmes? David Abbott and Steve Pollard

it will be interesting to continue to track these developments

Just adding that there is a perspective, in my view the most coherent one, where migration doesn't complement or replace development (which implies some additive properties, or even being zero sum; I couldn't possibly disagree with the idea of it being either additive or zero sum any more than I do already..), but is instead an inseparable cause, effect, and fundamental part of development. That emigration increases as countries become more successful and there is a natural turning point is the most important stylised fact in this regard, and at the micro level we see the exact same in who exactly moves and who does not: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/emigration-life-cycle-how-development-shapes-emigration-poor-countries Interesting initiative from some sociologists and other colleagues up north: https://migrationasdevelopment.wordpress.com/

Thanks, Malcolm. An important correction which we’ve made and noted. Thanks also for your continued engagement with the blog.

Your stats on the number of women that contested the 2002 and 2007 elections conflicts with other reports such as by NRI on the 2007 report (at p 61), which has 66 women candidates for the 2002 elections and 101 women candidates for the 2007 elections. Also, some reports/books, namely, History Through Stories - Book 2, says the 1982 elections saw Nahau Rooney retaining her seat, but you say none. Can we have the stats corrected properly.

I would like to thank Stephen Howes for this thoughtful response to my blog. Let me start by agreeing with him: migration has delivered clear and concrete benefits to Pacific households (raising incomes, reducing poverty, and expanding opportunity). That is not in dispute. My argument was never that migration is “bad,” nor that it should be restricted. People have always moved, it is their right and their choice. I am a migrant myself, and a remittance sender. So this is not an anti-migration manifesto. My argument is also not new. As Stephen rightly notes, it builds on decades of MIRAB thinking. But even that literature has long warned about dependence, labour market erosion, and weak incentives for reform. What may be new is not the idea, but the scale, speed, and perhaps a growing comfort with letting external inflows do the heavy lifting that domestic policy should be doing. And this is no longer just an academic debate. Policymakers across the Pacific are beginning to sound slightly uneasy, Fiji’s recent parliamentary discussions and the Prime Minister's speech (9/3/2026), Samoa’s debates about capping seasonal workers, and even moves in the Caribbean toward more structured labour mobility frameworks. I see this not only in policy discussions, but back home, in my own village in Dreketi (Fiji). The country examples cited (Cook Islands, Niue, Palau) are important, but also, as other commentators mentioned a bit special: microstates with privileged migration access, significant aid flows, and external rents. They are not easily replicable models for larger Pacific economies struggling to staff hospitals, schools, and public administrations. In small states, losing a few hundred skilled workers is not a rounding error, it’s a crisis. Fiji’s private sector is already complaining. And while higher income per capita may look good on paper, a country is not developed simply because fewer people are left to divide the pie. So this is not a debate about migration versus no migration. It is about whether migration complements development, or replaces it. My concern is that remittances are becoming a bit too good at solving short-term problems, while conveniently postponing the harder work of building productive economies. We may soon find ourselves very efficient at exporting workers, but less so at creating jobs and providing incentives for people to stay. At that point, migration stops being a choice and starts looking like the default strategy. And that, I think, is where the policy conversation needs to go.

Hi Cam - Great article, but just catching up on some detail that needs correction. While Australia led on the Declaration for Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, a state-led initiative launched in the margins of UNGA HLW 2025, the US opposition you cite was actually to the later (though related) annual UN Resolution on “Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations Personnel”, considered in the UN Third Committee. Though worth noting the US has not to date endorses the Declaration, it is not a UN thing, nor subject to any voting by UN member nations.

The example of Tuvalu updating its Constitution to address climate change shows how law can be used to protect justice and the common good. The decision demonstrates ethical responsibility because it will impact both present and future human populations. The Constitution should be updated because climate change threatens land and homes and cultural identity according to ethical principles which protect human life. The statement shows that laws function as instruments which defend human dignity while establishing safety standards. The example demonstrates that legal systems require ongoing transformation to tackle emerging social and environmental issues. Tuvalu establishes climate change as a national priority through constitutional review which improves its governance system. The legal system through its connection to leadership and decision-making processes shows how government offices protect citizens from environmental pollution. The Constitution updates create justice because they establish fairness through recognizing rights of climate change victims. The small island nation Tuvalu produces minimal global emissions yet experiences severe climate change threats. Environmental justice needs legal solutions which recognize indigenous voices and their environmental needs. The Tuvalu example demonstrates how legal systems and ethical standards and justice principles function together. Laws exist beyond their control purposes because they serve to protect people and their cultural heritage and the future well-being of their communities.