The Pacific
The South Pacific is one of the most important foreign policy fronts for Australia and New Zealand. For thirty years, population growth in the Pacific has been exceeding economic growth, and living standards have been stagnating or falling. Because of poor economic policies, the health, education, and incomes of most Pacific islanders have fallen further behind the Asia-Pacific region.
Civil instability and violence have been the inevitable result. Crime in PNG, coups in Fiji, riots in Tonga, Vanuatu, and Nauru, and civil conflict in the Solomon Islands all testify that there is an ‘arc of instability’ at Australia’s doorstep.
The CIS’s Pacific program seeks to analyse the region’s economies and their relationship with Australia and New Zealand.

Current Research Areas

• While the rest of the Asian region has participated in the largest exodus from poverty ever seen, why have the economies of the South Pacific failed to grow?
  
  
• Papua New Guinea, the largest of the Pacific nations, has been one of the worst performers. Though much smaller, Samoa has done better. What policies will lead to rapid growth throughout the South Pacific?
  
  
• The Pacific has received more aid per capita than any other developing region. Australia has been the largest donor. Why has aid has failed to stimulate growth?
  
  
• What role can Australia and New Zealand play in assisting the Pacific islands?

Research Staff
Helen Hughes
Gaurav Sodhi

Professor Helen Hughes AO is Professor Emeritus, the Australian National University, and Senior Fellow at CIS. She was Professor of Economics and Director of the National Centre for Development Studies at ANU from 1983 to 1993, and a member of the Fitzgerald Committee on Immigration: A Commitment to Australia. She also worked at the World Bank from 1968 to 1983 and was a member of the United Nations Committee for Development Planning from 1987 to 1993.
Widely published on a range of topics and regularly interviewed in the media, Professor Hughes has recently focussed on issues of development in the Pacific and Australia's remote Indigenous communities. Her recent work has included numerous Issue Analysis papers and press articles.

Fields of Knowledge: The Australian economy, economic development and aid, international trade, Indigenous affairs and capital flows.

Gaurav Sodhi is a Policy Analyst working in economic and foreign policy. He has recently completed a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts degree from UNSW, with majors in economics and political science.

Fields of Knowledge: Pacific development