In recent years, PNG has been running record deficits. In 2019, even before COVID-19, the budget deficit was already 5% of GDP. COVID-19 has understandably made things worse. The deficit reached 8.6% in 2020 and 7.1% of GDP this year. Borrowing more during a pandemic makes sense, but it cannot be...
The riots in Solomon Islands last week have thrust the small Pacific country into the international spotlight. What is their cause? A useful source is the public opinion survey conducted by the survey firm Tebbutt Research in April and May of this year on behalf of an international NGO, the...
While global scholarship on the professional views of journalists has expanded tremendously in recent decades, the Pacific remains a blind spot, with sporadic research at best. For instance, the Pacific was not featured in the Worlds of Journalism study on 76 countries, perhaps the most ambitious...
As COVID-19 sweeps across Papua New Guinea, one fact is clear: vaccination rates need to rise. There are a range of reasons why so few people have been vaccinated to date. Supply was limited at first, and threadbare health infrastructure has hampered the rollout since. But one impediment has become...
Over the last decade – from 2012 to 2021 – the media have reported many evictions of people from...
The riots in Honiara yesterday, disturbing the city’s normally quiet atmosphere, were unexpected...
The impacts of COVID-19 have added a new layer to the region’s development challenges. The economic...
Over the past decade, researchers (see here, here, here, and here) have illuminated the various...
Tonga went to the polls on 18 November 2021 and rejected over half of the 17 People’s...
As in 2008, 2010 and 2014, none of the female candidates standing in Tonga’s 2021 general election...
