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Not a surprise, frankly. The fault is in the KPIs of these donor institutions. I would not be surprised if they got entry to your two organisations through the people that were poached with the promise of lucrative jobs. Once the specific project was completed and KPIs met, the concerned were whisked away onto the donors' lucrative payroll and your oragisations left to fend for themselves! Not very unusual, unfortunately. Juliet's poem says it all!!

Hi Rosemary, thanks for your comment. As pointed out earlier today by Ronny Kareni, what happens next month may be indicative of what we can expect later in the year, if anything: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session43/Pages/OrderOfDay.aspx

For many years, I had a great poster above my desk, produced by an East Sepik women’s group: “Why should we take the advice of someone who does not have to live with the consequences of that advice?”

Yes the better quality of care is very important for patients especially older ones. So palliative and hospice care are great options for patients.

Greetings from Adelaide, Tess Re West Papua Quotable Quote: 'This includes a strong signal from leaders that they expect the government of Indonesia to facilitate a visit to the region by Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in order for her office to report to leaders when they meet this year in Port Vila.' I would like to see that and the sooner the better! However, I will not hold my breath bearing in mind that as an Australian who cares about human rights, the rule of law and fairness I have difficulty in understanding how General Wiranto, appointed by Joko Widodo, can possibly be in a position to settle historic human rights abuses in West Papua, when the United Nations in February 2003 indicted the same man, General Wiranto, Indonesia's former armed forces commander and commanding officer in East Timor in 1999, for crimes against humanity during East Timor's bloody vote for independence. It is recorded that 1000 people died; 250,000 others were forced to flee their homes and 80% of the nation’s infrastructure was destroyed. (The TNI had already wiped out about a 1/3 of East Timor’s population in its brutal and barbaric 24-year illegal occupation of the tiny nation.) General Wiranto was regarded as the officer principally responsible for the bloodletting that swept the former Indonesian territory during the UN-sponsored referendum.

Thanks for reading and for your comment - my prediction/hope for what we might see in this regard is contained in the section on geopolitics. I also discussed it in an interview for Pacific Beat which will air tomorrow.

The Pacific step up policy initiated by the Morrison government in 2019 to counteract China influence in the Pacific is another key development for the Pacific nations and Australia.

Thank you for your contribution Robin, and I am aware that this article does not contain anything specific to Fiji. The issues you raise are significant and I agree that there is a need for mainstream media to go beyond the simplistic in order to give their audiences a better understanding of what is really going on in our region and what Pacific island people are thinking & talking about.

Thanks David, for reading and for your feedback

Excellent overview.

There appears to be little or no focus by the ANZ media on in depth analysis of internal politics in the Pacific and the stability of governments in a region which is fast becoming an area of geopolitical interest and rivalry. For example, Fiji, an important regional country, remains a very fragile State both economically and politically with an authoritarian government propped up by a military, draconian laws on political activities and undemocratic governance practices. The festering concerns of the indigenous people in Fiji about their voice in governance cannot be ignored by the Fiji Government nor by ANZ. These concerns are deep seated and have the potential to erupt if it were not for the strong arm practices of the government. The government is perceived as an arrogant government with little empathy for grass roots problems. There is a worrying perception that the Prime Minister has his focus more on the trappings of power and that he has abdicated everyday governance both of the Government and the Parliament to his ambitious and more articulate Attorney General who is also a Minister of some half a dozen powerful Ministries and also perceived as interfering in other Ministerial portfolios as if he was the de facto Prime Minister. The indigenous community appears to have little confidence in the politics of the Attorney General.

Thanks for sharing valuable information with us.