Search results

Management development programmes (MDPs) are crucial to developing Pacific island countries. Programme designers must understand the region which comprises thousands of islands spread many miles apart. These countries are influenced by their history of colonial occupation and protection by the British, Germans and Americans. Fiji is unique, being an independent republic and the largest, wealthiest and most influential South Pacific country. Native languages are many, but English is commonly used throughout for government and business – except in French Polynesia. The native population is mainly Polynesian and Melanesian, with a significant minority being Micronesian. Each society has distinct customs, languages and behaviours modified by its national affiliation and geographical location. Early MDPs were modelled on western practices. In the 1990s, MDPs conform to the objectives of aid‐granting agencies, their content is oriented towards practical application of management skills, and instruction is conducted observing cultural behaviours and norms

This chapter introduces gender-related issues in the context of the South Pacific and agricultural development and research for development initiatives. National governments and donor organisations commonly invest in improving rural livelihoods by addressing agriculture and food security issues, and increasingly prioritise and even mandate gender integration/mainstreaming objectives within such initiatives. Despite substantial investments, there are few accounts of how integrating gender and gender mainstreaming in agriculture has been approached in practice in the South Pacific. Additionally, there is scarce attention to the benefits that a gender perspective has secured for women and men.

We outline the ways in which agriculture continues to underpin South Pacific economies and livelihoods; discuss gender mainstreaming/integration in agricultural development activities and debates that define its theory and practice; and highlight how the concepts of custom and intersectionality are important considerations in this field. The final part of the chapter provides an overview of the book structure which includes two introductory and contextualising chapters, six case study chapters, and a synthesis chapter of the key learnings, commonalities and challenges identified across the six case studies.

This chapter provides an overview of the South Pacific states from geographic, environmental, cultural, political, economic and demographic perspectives. Topics covered include environments and hazards, climate change, cultural diversity, colonialism and late independence, economic development, population and migration, trade, and aid. The contribution of the most important industries of agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining and tourism are reviewed. In terms of the future, it is argued that the key challenge in the South Pacific states is that of creating sustainable development, alongside employment and growth, and coping with environmental change.

The purpose of this paper is to create an area profile of significant activity and possibility in higher education for sustainable development (ESD) in the island nations of the South Pacific Ocean.

This is a descriptive research paper on philosophy, policy, and practice according to a methodology of categorical analysis by developments, challenges, and prospects. The focus is on higher education institutions, particularly the University of the South Pacific, the regional university of 12 Island nations in Oceania. The developments and prospects are contextualized, however, in the larger regional Pacific Education for Sustainable Development Framework and the Action Plan for Sustainable Development in the Pacific Islands 2008‐2014. Academic programs, policy statements, and education projects are analyzed.

South Pacific universities possess rich missions that valorize traditional knowledge and culture. The region also has a sophisticated policy environment for sustainability. These factors create many opportunities for sustainability in higher education. Nevertheless, enormous challenges of distance, funding, cultural traditions, globalisation, and adaptation to the devastating effects of climate destabilisation make progress difficult. Successes and promising prospects are described, including a new major effort to mainstream higher ESD by creating a Pacific Network of Island Universities (the NIU Project), which will reach 13 nations, including Papua New Guinea.

Little analysis of sustainability in higher education has been done in this geographical area. The categorical approach of this paper will provide researchers with findings appropriate to several endeavors, including charting a way forward in sustainability in higher education in the South Pacific Island nations. South Pacific initiatives arising from the unique nature of island geography and tradition could illuminate for others what is called the “Pacific Way.” Comparative analysis to mainland nations in the Asia‐Pacific region may also prove useful to researchers and practitioners.

Reports on a questionnaire, distributed in early 1988 to 200 libraries in the South West Pacific and South East Asia, that aimed to gather data about interlibrary loan traffic in those areas and to obtain information about the availability of union catalogues to libraries in those areas. Shows that despite a relatively low rate of response, the questionnaire produced some useful data about type and volume of ILL traffic intra – and inter – region. Concludes that libraries in the Asian‐Pacific regions need to be further developed.

Since independence, Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have remained heavily dependent on industrialized countries for their economic survival. PICs suffer from many disadvantages: a rising sea level, the tyranny of distance, a poor resource base, etc. Unequal political, economic and human resource capacities prevent PICs dealing on equal terms with their bilateral and multilateral counterparts. These have contributed to some PICs becoming ‘failed states’. Australia and New Zealand are addressing these issues in cooperation with PIC leadership. However, everything is not bleak in the long‐run. Technology has started opening up avenues to harvest chemical, food and mineral resources from the sea. A group approach is required to take advantage of benefits of emerging opportunities, lest others will outmaneuver them: there is no short cut.