Poverty in the Pacific Islands.

This article focuses on the socioeconomic situation of the least developed Pacific Island nations, namely the Melanesian countries of Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, the Polynesian countries of Samoa and Tuvalu, and the Micronesian country of Kiribati. All the least developed countries of the Pacific are micro-states relatively isolated geographically from the larger markets of the world where both their small size in terms of their total income activity, total levels of population and small internal markets create considerable natural economic disadvantages for them as do their relative isolation from the rest of the world. Social conditions as highlighted by widely used indicators improved in the five Pacific least developed countries in the 1990s compared to the 1980s but human development indicators remained low, as can be evidenced from the similarity of the Human Poverty Index of Vanuatu and that of Bangladesh. The importance of merchandise exports of these Pacific island countries varies greatly as a percentage of their gross domestic product and as a contribution to foreign revenue. Infrastructure is quite inadequate in these least developed Pacific countries and individual countries have varied in their ability to improve their infrastructure.