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Social marketing has been widely used to effectively and voluntarily change behaviours worldwide. The social marketing benchmark criteria offer a framework to apply this approach. This paper aims to examine the extent of use and predictors of success of social marketing benchmark criteria in changing the health behaviours of Pacific Islands populations.

A systematic review of studies designed to change health behaviours among Pacific Islands populations. Studies were assessed against the social marketing benchmark criteria to determine the extent to which the reported intervention used a social marketing approach; and whether the use of the social marketing benchmark criteria led to more effective interventions.

In total, 22 studies were included. In total, 13 were conducted within the Pacific Islands and 9 were aimed at Pacific Islands populations living in America, New Zealand or Hawaii. The most common criteria used were behaviour change, insight and customer orientation. Theory criterion was least commonly used. There was no clear indication of which criterion or combination of criteria, resulted in more effective interventions.

Further empirical evaluations of social marketing interventions within the Pacific Islands context are required to appropriately assess effective predictors of success for this population group. Studies of social marketing interventions targeting non-Pacific Islands populations in non-Pacific Island countries and territories may have limited applicability to Pacific Islanders living in Pacific Island countries and territories.

While similar studies have been conducted, this is the first study to review all behaviour change interventions by applying a social marketing lens in the Pacific Islands. While globally this may have been reviewed, the Pacific Islands has a unique context that needs to be considered, rather than assuming a one size fits all approach. This study offers a comprehensive overview of existing health behaviour change interventions in the Pacific Islands and a call to action to move social marketing forward within the Pacific Islands.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of trade policy pertaining to imported processed food on poorer health outcomes of people’s in the Pacific island countries.

Using an extended gravity model, the paper adopts the OLS time varying importer/exporter effects method and a Pseudo Poisson maximum likelihood estimator on a cross-sectional panel data set of 215 countries and territories. The estimation procedure controlled for 11 Pacific island countries between 2003 and 2013.

The empirical findings revealed a positive and statistically significant relationship between trade liberalisation and increased processed food imports in the Pacific island countries. The findings also reveal that the access ratio (kg/person) to selected imported processed food high in salt to Pacific island countries has increased significantly over time.

While much of the trade literature reveals positive impact of trade on the prosperity of nations, this study makes a new contribution in terms of supporting a negative impact of trade liberalisation policy on people’s health in small island developing states.

Examines the socio‐economic situation of the least developed Pacific Island nations (Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tuvalu and Kiribati) and the type of economics development advice which they have been given in recent years. Suggests that this advice was based on neo‐classical models and was insensitive to the institutional and cultural backgrounds of these countries. Argues that because of the insensitivity, proposed policies may be doomed and could result in further economic hardship.

This chapter examines the usefulness of the field of comparative and international education (CIE) in reference to supporting and informing the development of education in the Pacific Islands (Oceania) region. Accordingly, it reconsiders the conceptualization and practice of the field by unpacking understandings of CIE with specific reference to the Pacific Islands. I argue that advancing the field in Oceania entails critical examination of context, of persisting colonial legacies in education and the broader social, economic, and political landscape. Considerations of these discourses identify some of the tensions, contradictions, and ambivalences that eventuate as “education for national development” is reconciled with indigenous knowledges and the intellectual traditions that sustain Pacific island communities. Adopting a postcolonial perspective, this chapter explores recent educational initiatives in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Solomon Islands. These initiatives reveal the complexities and multifaceted dynamics that underpin the context of Pacific Islands systems of education. They also reflect how Pacific educational leaders negotiate global imperatives for education while observing indigenous knowledge systems and cultural values. The lessons drawn from these case studies suggest that comparative education scholars need to rethink partnerships with colleagues and neighbors in consideration of Pacific and indigenous (including Australia and New Zealand) cultural protocols of engagement by honoring respect and reciprocity, mutual benefit, and empowerment. Such conceptual and practical reconsiderations may facilitate an assessment of the impact of western intellectual contributions on systems of education in Oceania.

Using the United Nations’ definition of least developed nations, examines the socioeconomic situation of the least developed Pacific island nations, namely the Melanesian countries – the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, the Polynesian countries – Samoa and Tuvalu, and the Micronesian country – Kiribati, and critically discusses the type of development policy advice given to these nations by Bretton Woods’ institutions and their “relatives”. Suggests that the emphasis of these institutions and many donor countries on the desirability of business‐led development, structural adjustment policies and the globalisation of these economies has paid insufficient attention to the cultural background, institutional and other constraints encountered by these economies and may have added to political instability in this region, as well as the occurrence of poverty and growing inequality. A different set of policy proposals would have emerged if greater account had been taken of the general views of Myrdal rather than relying almost exclusively on the neoclassical economic paradigm. This is especially unfortunate because severe poverty (even more so than in much of Asia) exists in several of these least developed nations e.g. the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

The purpose of this paper is to present a forward-looking case of climate change induced displacement in the Pacific Islands as a multidimensional phenomenon with a moral dimension. Instead of seeking to provide a definitive solution to an imagined problem, the authors have identified the complexity of the situation through an exploration of the accounts of place and accountability for the consequences of displacement.

The paper explores displacement from a sociological perspective. The authors use the sociology of worth (SOW) to anchor explicit and competing moral claims in an evaluation regime that considers questions of justice and the common good. The public accounts of place in the Pacific Islands provide the empirical material for a consideration of a situated crisis. While SOW is generally adopted for current crises or disputes, this study explores the pre-immigrant story and a future case of displacement. Bauman’s (1998, 2012) perspective on globalization is used to narrate the local conditions of place in a global context as reflective of a dominant social order.

Since place is a multidimensional concept and experienced according to various states of being including physical, functional, spiritual and emotion or feeling, displacement is also felt at a multidimensional level. Thus to provide an account of a lived experience and to foster a moral accountability for climate induced displacement requires a consideration of multiple accounts and compromises that need to be considered.

As with the majority of accounting research that is concerned with the suffering of those at a distance, we too must tackle this conundrum in a meaningful way. As members of a society that is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gas, how do we speak for our drowning neighbors? The paper concludes with some insights from Boltanski (1999) as a way forward.

The paper presents a forward-looking scenario of a looming crisis from a sociological perspective. It adds to the literature on alternative accounts by using stories, media, government reports and other sources to holistically build a narrative grounded in a current and imaged social order.