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Apart from serving the needs of the United Nations, Peace Keeping role, the Republic of Fiji does not need an Army, without an Army the Four Coups, were all backed by a Military, and would have failed. The largest visible effect on Fiji has been the four military Coups. Corruption is high, rule of Law is influenced by the Military’s strong influence over law and order and general governance. Free and fair elections to show the reality of poverty amongst the people is the only viable option for an improved economy.

Hi Nina, Thank you for your comment. And thank you for some really interesting figures about the distribution of countries with the lowest levels of Human Development. The explanation you offer sounds very plausible. I thought it must have been part of the story. However, I'm no longer confident that it is though. This is because when I added regional fixed effects to my regression models (the results are in the report's appendix) the inverted u shape spending pattern could still be found. Adding regional fixed effects means that the analytic leverage in the regression is drawn from differences within regions not between them. So the result would not seem to be solely a product of Australian NGOs under-serving Africa while focusing more on Asia and the Pacific. Also, the chart on page 23 of the main report shows that NGOs differ in their regional focus from the government aid program. NGOs focus quite a lot more on Sub-Saharan Africa and quite a lot less on the Pacific. Both NGOs and the government do focus most on Asia, but I'm not sure that's NGOs following the governments lead as much a reflection of historical patterns of aid giving and a ongoing ties. At least, that's my thinking at this point in time. Thanks again for your comment. It's been very helpful as I continue to think about the results of the work. Terence

Fiji has a standing army. Mauritius doesn’t. Possibly relevant?

Fiji's economy is paying the price of its coups, but also the price of its strategy of keeping wage rates low. Instead of developing and retaining its human capital, low wages have caused many skilled professionals to emigrate to better opportunities overseas, leaving Fiji with fewer business leaders and a less effective government.

Hi Terence, I believe there is an additional reason to the downward slope for countries scoring less than 0.55 on the Human Development Index. The bottom 34 countries - all scoring 0.55 or less - are all on the African continent but for Afghanistan. Of the next 26 countries, which covers HDI values between 0.55 and 0.65, 16 countries are located in the Asia-Pacific. This is the group of countries that according to your article receives the highest percentage-share of donations. I presume, it is fair to say that the Australian government is focusing the majority of its aid-spend on countries in the Asia-Pacific region. I would argue, the downward slope show exactly that the the NGOs are following the government non-NGO spend. It is telling a story of lesser interest in lowest-scoring countries, all of which happens to be on the African continent, and a higher interest towards Asia-Pacific which also traditionally has a higher political and national interest. It would be great to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you Nina Hjortlund Founding Director and CEO Australia for Cedar Tanzania

Fiji is not wrecked by tensions from the two ethnic groups it is wrecked by the people who are leading the country the Prime Minister and the Attorney General who is also the Minister for Every thing in Fiji and who is also the General Secretary of of the Fiji First Party

Thanks Bob. As Parliamentary Sec for International Development you were instrumental in supporting this orphan issue. Those small initial investments continue to deliver very high returns, and are evidenced across the resolution. The requirement for a multi-sectoral response to drowning continues to make finding a home a challenge.

Reading about the 2002 elections, is not very different from reading about the 2017 elections. Let's hope those of 2022 will be different. What happened after the Morauta government is that the successive governments still kept going through the moves, and pretended to prepare SOEs such as PNG Power for eventual privatization. This to keep the IMF, World Bank and IADB happy by making the right noises. This gave now convicted criminals like Rex Paki the opportunity to sell off state assets, and pocket the proceeds. The same Rex Paki was also put into the PNG University of Technology Council, where he became chair of the University Development Corporation, and managed to steal K3M through land deals. Beware of the reformers!

It gods bless n honest with God.

Excellent accessible blog illustrating why governance matters to development. And from Economists! Well done

I want to share my view with organization.

It is hard to understand why children are not taught to swim. We learnt in the Richmond River in Casino. As a lover of water I taught swimming for years. It is so hard though when water is not handy and dams are dangerous. Shame too that swimming pools are so expensive .