Mixing metaphors : differences in the language and understanding of development policy in the Pacific Islands

The use of metaphors in the Pacific Islands reveal a discourse of representation and containment, which emphasizes ‘smallness’ in geographic, political and cultural aspects of development. Heather Wallace contrasts the language and strategies used by policymakers, particularly from Australia, to the understanding and knowledge of Pacific Islanders.

The Pacific OPIC project (Obesity Prevention in Communities) - objectives and designs

Background: Evidence on how to reduce the increasing prevalence of youth obesity is urgently needed in many countries.The Pacific OPIC Project (Obesity Prevention In Communities) is a series of linked studies in four countries (Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia) which is designed to address this important problem.
Objectives: The studies aim to: 1) determine the overall impact of comprehensive, community-based intervention programs on overweight/obesity prevalence in youth; 2) assess the feasibility of the specific intervention components and their impacts on eating and physical activity patterns; 3) understand the socio-cultural factors that promote obesity and how they can be infl uenced; 4) identify the effects of food-related policies in Fiji and Tonga and how they might be changed; 5) estimate the overall burden of childhood obesity (including loss of quality of life); 6) estimate the costs (and cost-effectiveness) of the intervention programs, and; 7) increase the capacity for obesity prevention research and action in Pacific populations.
Design: The community studies use quasi-experimental designs with impact and outcome assessments being measured in over 14,000 youth across the intervention and control communities in the four sites. The multi-strategy, multi-setting interventions will run for 3 years before fi nal follow up data are collected in 2008. The interventions are being informed by socio-cultural studies that will determine the family and societal infl uences on food intake, physical activity and body size perception.
Progress and conclusions: Baseline studies have been completed and interventions are underway. Despite the many challenges in implementing and evaluating community-based interventions, especially in the Pacifi c, the OPIC Project will provide rich evidence about what works and what does not work for obesity prevention in youth from European and Pacific backgrounds.

Ecosystem services of tropical dry forests : insights from longterm ecological and social research on the Pacific coast of Mexico

In the search for an integrated understanding of the relationships among productive activities, human well-being, and ecosystem functioning, we evaluated the services delivered by a tropical dry forest (TDF) ecosystem in the Chamela Region, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. We synthesized information gathered for the past two decades as part of a long-term ecosystem research study and included social data collected in the past four years using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) conceptual framework as a guide. Here we identify the four nested spatial scales at which information has been obtained and emphasize one of them through a basin conceptual model. We then articulate the biophysical and socio-economic constraints and drivers determining the delivery of ecosystem services in the Region. We describe the nine most important services, the stakeholders who benefit from those services, and their degree of awareness of such services. We characterize spatial and temporal patterns of the services’ delivery as well as trade-offs among services and stakeholders. Finally, we contrast three alternative future scenarios on the delivery of ecosystem services and human well-being. Biophysical and socioeconomic features of the study site strongly influence human−ecosystem interactions, the ecosystem services delivered, the possible future trajectories of the ecosystem, and the effect on human well-being. We discuss future research approaches that will set the basis for an integrated understanding of human−ecosystem interactions and for constructing sustainable management strategies for the TDF.

Australia, New Zealand and Pacific security : a constructivist comparison

This thesis presents a comparative analysis of Australian and New Zealand foreign policy in the Pacific with particular emphasis on the Bougainville and Solomon Islands peace interventions. Through a constructivist lens, it argues that New Zealand's policies have been more effective and culturally appropriate than Australia's in recent years.

Australia and Japan in the South Pacific island countries : a general appraisal through the concepts of structural power

This study examines several specific fields of activity of Australia and Japan in the areas of security, production, finance, development assistance, information, education and regional organization. Using the concept of structural power, it observes the sources of Australian and Japanese strenght in the region, the growing imbalance in the bilateral Australia-Japan relationship, and also the coexistence of affinities and differences in the development opportunities opened to the South Pacific Island Countries.

Evidence-informed process to identify policies that will promote a healthy food environment in the Pacific Islands

Objective: To implement a systematic evidence-informed process to enable Fiji and Tonga to identify the most feasible and targeted policy interventions which would have most impact on diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Design: A multisectoral stakeholder group of policy advisers was formed in each country. They used participatory approaches to identify the problem policies and gaps contributing to an unhealthy food environment. Potential solutions to these problems were then identified, and were assessed by them for feasibility, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and side-effects. Data were gathered on the food and policy environment to support the assessments. A shortlist of preferred policy interventions for action was then developed.

Results: Sixty to eighty policy problems were identified in each country, affecting areas such as trade, agriculture, fisheries and pricing. Up to 100 specific potential policy solutions were then developed in each country. Assessment of the policies highlighted relevant problem areas including poor feasibility, limited effectiveness or cost-effectiveness and serious side-effects. A shortlist of twenty to twenty-three preferred new policy options for action in each country was identified.

Conclusions: Policy environments in these two countries were not conducive to supporting healthy eating. Substantial areas of potential action are possible, but some represent better choices. It is important for countries to consider the impact of non-health policies on diets.

Well-being achievement in Pacific Asia

The world has undergone rapid and tremendous change in recent decades. While many nations have achieved ever-higher per capita incomes, and higher well-being according to traditional measures, they have also experienced profound internal change. This change has lead to widespread concerns regarding social exclusion, human security, levels of personal satisfaction and happiness. Other countries have faired much less well, as according to many well-being measures they are worse off than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Life expectancies, for example, have fallen dramatically in many countries and are likely to fall substantially in others. The incidence of income poverty is higher today in many countries than it was ten years ago. Worldwide, more than a billion people currently live on less than one dollar per day. Social science research on living standards, human well-being and quality of life has come a long way over recent years, altering in response to changing global conditions, new research priorities, new conceptualisations and improved data resources. Twenty five years ago, national well-being achievement comparisons relied very heavily, and in some circles exclusively, on measures of income per capita. The same exercise would today be based a range of indicators, including summary measures of human well-being such as the well-known Human Development Index (UNDP, 2005). This is consistent with the commonly accepted view that human well-being is best treated as a multidimensional concept along the lines advocated by Sen (1985, 1993), Stewart (1985), Doyal & Gough (1991), Ramsay (1992), Cummins (1996), Narayan et al. (2000) or Nussbaum (2000) and others, as summarised in Alkire (2002). This view tends not to reject the relevance of income based or economic measures per se, simply positing that there is more to well-being achievement than simply increasing incomes. The widespread acceptance that well-being is multidimensional has more recently been accompanied by another important recognition. This relates not so much to current levels of well-being, but to the likelihood of declines in future levels. This recognition has spawned a rapidly growing literature on what is now termed as ‘vulnerability’. The vulnerability literature has primarily been concerned with the likelihood of individuals falling below the poverty line, be it defined in terms of income, consumption or health. Among the influential early vulnerability studies are Ravallion (1998), Jalan & Ravallion (1998) and Dercon & Krishnan (1999), each of which distinguished between transient and chronic poverty.

Non-economic well-being achievement in Pacific Asia

It is well known that income per capita and most widely reported non-economic well-being achievement measures are highly correlated among countries. Yet many countries exhibit higher achievement in the latter than predicted by the former. The reverse is true for many other countries. This paper commences by extracting the inter-country variation in a composite of three widely reported educational and health status indicators not accounted for by variations in income per capita. This extraction is interpreted inter alia as a measure of non-economic well-being. Using data for a sample of Pacific Asian countries, the paper then looks at correlations between this extraction and a number of new or less widely-used well-being measures, in an attempt to find the measure that best captures these achievements.