The authors of the study found that there are concerns that geopolitical competition can lead to the prioritisation of external agendas over those of Pacific Island countries. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis
A new report from the Australian think tank Lowy Institute reveals that citizens of Pacific Island nations are concerned about the lack of accountability and transparency in foreign aid and development projects, particularly amid geopolitical rivalries.
The Lowy Institute report - funded by the Australian government - is titled 'Looking through a Pacific Islands lens: Access, accountability, and alignment in global engagements'.
It is based on extensive field research in seven Pacific Island countries, which involved interviews with over 150 Pacific Island leaders and stakeholders across government, civil society, and business.
Co-authors of the study Meg Keen and Mihai Sora found that there are concerns that geopolitical competition can lead to the prioritisation of external agendas over those of Pacific Island countries.
They found that while geopolitical rivalries in the region bring new development opportunities, it also exposes governance weaknesses.
"We really wanted to hear more from Pacific Island countries about how they were experiencing the geopolitical contest and the increasing external engagement," Keen told RNZ Pacific.
"We do hear a little bit from the leaders, particularly at things like the Pacific Island Forum, but we don't often hear from government officials and NGOs community members," Keen said.
She said the report explored how the leaders from all different walks of life - politicians, government officials and locals - were experiencing geopolitical competition.
Sora added that there is sometimes a disconnection between political decision-makers, senior government officials, civil society, or communities.
"Oftentimes, we hear about this tension between how national interest is perceived in communities and how national interest decisions are taken by the political class," he said.
"This project was really about investigating where there may be those discrepancies."
'Problem of money going into different places'
Keen said all seven countries - Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu - that they visited, they were worried about "this big flood of money coming in and the lack of accountability".
"There can be six people that are trying to deal with dozens of donors, multilateral and bilateral, trying to engage. And what's happening is it's there's a leap frogging of those central systems in some cases," she said.
"We have the problem of money going in different places, not being accountable and this was the major concerns that people were raising."
Sora said budget support provided by donor partners was another example that "took some of the pressure of national political figures to deliver" in key sectors, such as education, health and infrastructure.
He said this is especially common for countries that had a large component of constituency development funds.
"There was this view articulated that where an external partner is essentially filling a gap in a core development or social policy area, because of the fungibility of money, it meant that leaders were able to use their discretionary funds in a way that was more politically calculated, or in a way that benefited their own personal, political, or familial networks.
The report also found that as more funds are allocated, designed to deepen influence or to create influence, there was less money going to local communities, and the civic space is shrinking.
"Because of that, it's harder for the NGOs, the community groups, to hold the government to account, because they don't have as much visibility of what's going on. They don't have as much support as they had in the past," Keen said.
Sora said stakeholders in Pacific Island countries are well aware of the diplomatic objective of larger donor countries.
"Frankly, donors are not inclined to expose the politicisation of their activities or the the political allocation of resources or the delivery of the projects.
"If they are also trying to build influence with these very same people, they also don't want to scrutinise their actions and do anything that actually diminishes from that diplomatic objective of winning friends."
