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Last Updated:
3 February, 2006
© Copyright SPC

 

Hardship and Poverty in the Pacific

A SUMMARY

Until recently, poverty has not been considered a serious issue in the Pacific as images of hunger and destitution frequently seen in other parts of the developing world have been largely absent.

 

In the last decade, however, the relatively poor economic performance of most of the countries, the political instability and ethnic tensions that have surfaced in some, increasing levels of youth unemployment, and emerging social problems have raised questions about the true extent of poverty and hardship in the Pacific.

 

In order to bring these issues into sharper focus and to raise awareness of them, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) sponsored country poverty assessments that quantified key poverty indicators in nine countries and conducted participatory assessments of hardship in more than 150 village and urban communities in eight.1 At the same time, ADB conducted a parallel exercise to assess Pacific development strategies and policies and their impact on poverty and hardship.

Read the whole document (PDF 5,44 Mo)

 Useful links:

  1. The Priorities of the People

  2. The National Strategies and a Framework for the Future

The perceptions of the people are important indicators of the extent of hardship and poverty in society. The needs, aspirations, and priorities of the poor can provide valuable guidance to answering key policy questions and can help set national development priorities and strategies. Frequently, however, the views of the people either are not sought or are overlooked by policy

makers.2 The participatory assessments of hardship sought the perceptions of the people, particularly the poor and most disadvantaged, on what poverty and hardship meant for them in their

daily lives including details of extent and nature, primary causes, and priorities for alleviation.

Poverty and hardship in the Pacific are defined as inadequate levels of sustainable human development due to a lack and to income earning opportunities (see Box 1). This basic definition,

strengthened by reference to the importance of family, kinship, and customary obligations, was widely debated and agreed to during consultations in all countries included in the hardship

assessments.

 

The assessments revealed that few communities acknowledged that extreme poverty was an issue. Only in Fiji Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG) was this type of poverty accepted as a serious concern.

 

However, all communities without exception acknowledged that hardship was a common, widely shared condition when defined as a family’s inability to supply basic needs and to meet community

obligations. In general this meant that such a family had no regular wage earner or source of income from remittances.

 

In urban areas, however, there was hardship even among families with an employed member, the so-called working poor whose wage income did not bring them above the basic-needs poverty line.

Theirs was a life of making difficult choices between competing priorities:

  • paying school fees or household bills;

  • buying food or meeting community obligations.

Hardship was seen also as the result of poor education, the lack of access to land for food gardens or cash crops, poor access to good water and sanitation facilities, poor health, and living alone or depending on others. In short, the communities surveyed recognized that there are growing numbers of disadvantaged people who are being left behind as national economies expand and become more monetized and as traditional ties weaken.

 

These concerns were remarkably consistent not only between the urban and rural areas within each country but also across the region. In other words, despite the wide differences in geography and resource endowments among the atoll states of Micronesia and the high islands of Melanesia and most of Polynesia, the concerns of the people are very similar. The causes of hardship and poverty center around the need for income, the need for a reasonable standard of basic services, and the need for skills to meet opportunities and challenges as they become available.

 

For further information, please contact:

  • David Abbott, Poverty Specialist and Development Economist.

David has more than 25 years of experience working in the region and has been responsible for the preparation of eight of the country poverty assessments.

  • A Social Development Analyst and Participatory Poverty Assessment Specialist will be appointed soon.