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Motivation: The Pacific is the world's most aid‐dependent region, yet available data suggest aid projects are less effective on average in the Pacific than elsewhere in the developing world. Purpose: This article examines the most likely explanations for lower aid project effectiveness in the Pacific. Explanations include poor governance, restricted levels of political freedom, poor economic performance, isolation, and small populations. Methods and approach: Three approaches to causal mediation analysis are used to identify which explanatory variables best explain why aid projects are less effective in the Pacific. Aid project effectiveness data come from a multi‐donor dataset of individual aid projects. Data on potential explanatory variables comes from a range of international datasets. Findings: All three causal mediation approaches point to the isolation of many Pacific countries, alongside comparatively small populations, as being the main impediments to project effectiveness. These findings hold even with a suite of project traits being controlled for and within an analysis in which all the key country variables of interest are controlled for. Policy implications: Project effectiveness in the Pacific appears to be primarily constrained by variables that cannot themselves be shifted (the region's countries cannot readily be made less remote or more populous). Improved project effectiveness in the Pacific will require donor practice to carefully adapt to the region's context. A structured process of donor learning will be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we conduct the first‐ever systematic study of Australian aid project appraisals. Using a previously unstudied data set of appraisals, we study project and recipient country factors influencing Australian aid effectiveness. We find effectiveness varies more within recipient countries than between countries. We find larger projects are more likely to be successful. Humanitarian projects are more successful on average than development projects. We also find that Australian aid is less likely to succeed in the Pacific than elsewhere, a significant finding given Australia's increased focus on the region. Finally, we show that Australia does not appear to be an unusual donor: when we compare Australia with other donors in a global data set, we find similar variables are correlated with effectiveness for most donors, including Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: “Crowding out” is a widely accepted claim in migration analysis, which posits that the preference of profit‐maximising employers for irregular and minimally regulated migrants overregulated alternatives will undermine, if not condemn to failure, well‐regulated temporary migration schemes. In this paper, we test the crowding out hypothesis by examining the experience with well‐regulated seasonal migrant worker programs in the horticultural sectors of Australia and New Zealand. This experience, which in both countries has involved recruitment of workers from the Pacific Islands, has been divergent, despite the two programs being similar in design. Our findings suggest that the relative attractiveness of regulated and unregulated migrant labour sources depends on a range of factors, including the export orientation of the sector, the costs of collective action and regulation, differences in policy design and implementation, and external factors. Depending on industry and economy‐wide characteristics, quality and reputational benefits for employers can offset the cost of regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The term “green growth” and its sister concepts, “blue‐green growth,” the “green economy,” and the “blue‐green economy,” have gained considerable traction in the Pacific island region in a short space of time. Pacific island governments, regional organisations, and development agencies all use the terms, which originate outside of the Pacific. What (and who) has driven the adoption of green growth terminology within the region? How has its usage in the region mirrored international usage? This paper presents findings from research on the vernacularisation of green growth terminology in Fiji and Vanuatu. We find a contested policy space, where Pacific actors deploy competing meanings of green growth terms in ways that both reflect their worldviews and support their agendas. This diversity has helped to underpin the rapid spread of green growth terminology in the region, while differentiating it from international usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pacific islands is one of the most aid-dependent regions in the world. This article examines developments in the delivery of foreign aid to the region since the year 2000, a period in which there has been considerable change in both the amount and way in which aid is delivered internationally. Although Pacific island countries have seen a scale-up in development assistance, it has been modest relative to that enjoyed by other developing countries. Improvement has been mixed in areas identified as a concern by the aid effectiveness agenda, with high levels of volatility and lack of predictability particularly problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of country ownership is central to international efforts to improve aid effectiveness. At the same time, policy reform in recipient countries continues to be a donor priority, given its potential to both reduce poverty and improve aid effectiveness. How effectively can donors promote reform while not undermining ownership? What role can be played by conditionality, discredited in recent decades but still widely used in altered form and linked to the provision of budget support? This article draws on over 50 in-depth interviews with recipient country policy-makers, political leaders and donor officials to explore these questions in three aid-dependent Small Island Developing States ( SIDS) where donors have used budget support to leverage policy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Papua New Guinea's (PNG's) road system is in a parlous state after decades of neglect. More than half of the roads in the country require urgent rehabilitation. The PNG Government sought from 2003 to address the problem through the establishment of a Road Fund designed to earmark revenue for road management. Development partners supported these efforts, which were similar to reforms implemented in other parts of the world. This article examines the establishment of an independent road fund and road management agency in PNG. It finds that these reforms have not markedly improved road conditions, and that they have been undermined by a lack of support from political leaders and parts of the civil service. The article's conclusion, that the establishment of a road fund is no panacea against political obstacles to road maintenance funding, is relevant to a broader literature concerning the establishment of independent institutions to address governance challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small island developing states face unique constraints to the provision of electricity services in rural areas, given their geographical features, and the small scale of government bureaucracies and markets. In small island developing states situated in the Pacific Ocean, these factors have resulted in some of the lowest electrification rates in the world. Seventy percent of Pacific islanders are without access to power; a figure that is equivalent to access rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite higher income levels in the Pacific. Past efforts by government and aid organizations to expand electricity access in rural areas have achieved negligible success, given regulatory frameworks that do not encourage grid extension, and the absence of effective institutional frameworks for operation and maintenance of decentralized systems. This paper argues that the binding constraint to rural electrification in Pacific small island developing states is the failure of regulatory frameworks to establish a viable business model for investment. Regulatory reform is needed that creates commercial incentives for private and public sector power utilities to provide power in rural areas, both through extension of electricity networks and decentralized power provision. Regulatory reform could also address past problems with the operation and maintenance of decentralized systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific Island countries face a range of development challenges, including smallness, distance from major markets and capacity constraints. Regional service delivery, or pooling, has been advocated as a means of addressing these challenges. This article presents the findings from the first comprehensive study of pooling initiatives in the Pacific. It draws on a review of the literature pertaining to 20 pooling initiatives identified in the region and on interviews with stakeholders involved in many of those initiatives. The study finds that experience with pooling among Pacific Island countries has not met the optimistic expectations of advocates, including development partners. This is the result of the challenges inherent in voluntary regionalism, which are exacerbated by the diversity of Pacific Island states and political economy constraints. The article concludes that an incremental approach to expansion of regional service provision in the Pacific is both likely and appropriate given these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese development assistance in the Pacific has attracted increasing attention since the 1st China- Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum in 2006, at which China announced US$492 million in concessional loans to the region. Another US$1 billion in concessional loans was announced at the 2nd China- Pacific Forum in 2013. This article explores how Pacific island governments negotiate and oversee the implementation of Chinese official development assistance in four Pacific Island case study countries where assistance has been significant: Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Cook Islands. We argue that the way in which governments have pursued, overseen and implemented projects has differed considerably, and is an important determinant of the effectiveness and developmental impact of Chinese assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, renewable energy technologies have been advocated in Fiji on the basis that they improve energy security and serve as a risk-mitigation measure against oil price volatility. Despite this, there have been no published attempts to measure the impact of renewable technologies on energy security or to assess the major threats to that security. This analysis is important if the benefits of renewable energy sources in Fiji are to be evaluated adequately. This article considers the key threats to the security of electricity supply in Fiji for grid-connected and off-grid areas and uses these as a basis for a definition of energy security that is relevant to Fiji. It proposes a method for assessing the potential contribution of renewable technologies to the security of electricity supply in Fiji, based on mean-variance portfolio theory used in financial markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]