The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2004

What ails the Pacific and what are the remedies? These are perennial and much debated questions for Islanders and their principal aid donors. A conventional diagnosis focuses on the tyrannies of distance and small economies of scale. This perspective has prompted the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to revisit the merits of deepening regionalism as a means to overcome national weaknesses. To this end the past year has seen agreement on wide-ranging reform of the Forum to facilitate regional integration and cooperation. Another long-standing school of thought attributes blame for contemporary ills on the economic and political structures imposed by departing colonial powers and their uneasy coexistence with tradition. One way of rectifying, or at least mitigating, negative aspects of this legacy is the donor-inspired agenda to promote good governance, notably to tackle corruption. The ubiquitous practice of corruption is an ongoing preoccupation of aid donors, Pacific leaders, and civil society, yet policies to combat it have delivered variable outcomes. A recent study of corruption in the Pacific recommends a change in strategy. In the security domain, violent conflicts have arisen in the Pacific for a range of reasons.