Pacific Islands' Population
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New Zealand Population Review, 33/34: 95-127 Copyright © 2008 Population Association of New Zealand Pacific Islands’ Population and Development: Facts, Fictions and Follies GERALD HABERKORN* Abstract Governments in the various Pacific Island states and territories, along with their development partners and a range of regional organisations, have been participating in the multi-sectoral international development agenda that is enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs have some serious omissions in so far as they relate to key relationships between population, economic growth and sustainable development. These include an absence of reference to: population growth, population structure, fertility, migration, urbanisation and the development of appropriate data bases and information systems for developing policy frameworks and implementation plans. This paper reviews contemporary Pacific Island populations in the context of demographic factors that will impact on the achievement of the MDGs in the region. Some long-standing fictions are challenged in an attempt to ensure that persistent fact-less follies do not continue to misinform public policy and thus detract from the region‟s progress towards informed and sustained development in Pacific populations. acific Island countries and their development partners joined an emerging international consensus by committing in 2000 to a multi- P sectoral international development agenda enshrined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This followed a decade of international conferences addressing key development challenges regarding the environment, population, social development, gender and human settlement concerns. The MDGs provide a comprehensive framework for eight broad development goals and 47 indicators, and serve a useful and politically important function in allowing regular assessments *Dr Gerald Haberkorn is Director, Statistics and Demography Program, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Noumea, New Caledonia. This is a revised version of a keynote address to the Population Association of New Zealand Conference, 3-7 July, 2007, Te Papa, Wellington. His email address is: [email protected]. PACIFIC ISLANDS POPULATION & DEVELOPMENT 96 and comparisons of development progress against important goals and benchmarks across the broad spectrum of social and economic development. The emphasis on consolidating key environmental, population, health, social and gender concerns and development priorities, derived from several comprehensive and thematic policy frameworks and plans of action into one single document, prioritises broad common development concerns and goals. Inevitably this entails the downside of any negotiation and consensus-building exercise in that many important features invariably fall through the cracks. There are some major omissions from the MDGs when the 13 key ICPD Program of Action priority themes are compared with the eight MDG goals (Table 1). Table 1: ICPD Program of Action and MDG framework ICPD POA MDG Framework (I=number of indicators) 1. Interrelationship between population, Goal 1:Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (I=5) sustained economic growth and Goal 7:Ensure Environmental sustainability (I=7) sustainable development 2. Gender equality, equity and Goal 3:Promote gender equality and empower women empowerment of women (see also: Goal 2:universal primary education) (I=4) 3. The family, its roles, composition, structure 4. Population growth and structure 5. Reproductive rights and reproductive Goal 6:Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases health (focus on contraceptive prevalence ration) (I=7) 6. Health, Morbidity and Mortality Goal 4:Reduce child mortality (I=3) Goal 5:Improve maternal health (I=2) 7. Population distribution, Goal 6:Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases (I=7) urbanization and internal migration 8. International migration 9. Population, development and Goal 2:Achieve universal primary education (I=3) education (note: some aspects covered) 10. Technology, research, development (data collection, RHI socio-economic, population research) 11. National action (policies, plans, resources mobilization) 12. International cooperation Goal 8:Develop Global Partnership for development (I=16) 13. Partnership with Non- governmental sector PACIFIC ISLANDS POPULATION & DEVELOPMENT 97 The most glaring omissions from the MDGs are: population growth and structure in general (ICPD-4) and two of the three drivers of population dynamics: fertility (ICPD-4,5) and migration (ICPD-7,8); adult mortality (ICPD-6) and with it life expectancy, a critical human development performance indicator; urbanization (ICPD-7); and the absence of any reference to data collection, research and information management, and to developing policy frameworks, implementation plans and resource mobilization schedules (ICPD- 10,11), which reflects a blind faith in governments having adequate systems in place, or that these developments would somehow eventuate on their own. Considering that most development practitioners, including staff and representatives of development agencies, would readily subscribe to the premise that social and economic development is ultimately about and for people, it ought to follow on as a matter of logic, that a realistic appreciation of population dynamics is a driving force of aid policy development, planning and program delivery. In turn there would be appreciation that a good understanding of basic demographic and population and development facts and processes, substantiated by up-to-date and reliable statistics and meaningful information, provides the foundation for development plans and policy frameworks. Having worked for several years now on Pacific population and development matters at national and regional levels has taught me that demographic facts and fiction are too close to each other for comfort, and statistical, policy and planning follies are never far behind. A Sea of Islands: Diverse Islands and Cultures The 22 island countries and territories that make up the Pacific Island region represent an enormous diversity in physical geography and culture, languages and social-political organization, size and resource endowment. Spread over an area of thirty million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean, and stretching from the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas in the north-west Pacific PACIFIC ISLANDS POPULATION & DEVELOPMENT 98 Ocean to Pitcairn in the south-east, are at least 7,500 islands of which only around 500 are inhabited. Some countries such as Nauru and Niue, consist just of the one coral island, whereas other countries, like Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia comprise literally of hundreds of islands. Melanesia comprises large, mountainous and mainly volcanic island countries, endowed with natural resources, rich soils and an abundant marine life. Micronesia and Polynesia, on the contrary, are made up of much smaller island landmasses, and their natural resources are limited to small areas of land and the expansive ocean; they mostly contain small atolls with poor soils, with elevations usually between one and two meters (Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu) as well as some islands of volcanic origin with more fertile lands (such as Samoa, Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands). Although containing just 0.1 percent of the world‟s population, the Pacific region contains one third of the world‟s languages, testimony not just to an enormous cultural diversity, but to significant social, political and behavioral complexities. This situation is most pronounced across Melanesia, where 700 languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea alone, and more than 100 each in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. These vast differences are unknown throughout Micronesia and Polynesia, where one national language is the norm in most countries. There are distinct differences in social organization and cultural practices between the three broad sub-regions, even allowing for some variations within countries. For example, throughout Melanesia social and political status and power are usually acquired on the basis of individual merit and effort. In most of Polynesia these are achieved on the basis of patrilineal descent. In Micronesia, the situation is more complex: on high islands and more fertile atolls, there are close similarities to the Polynesian system, whereas on less endowed atolls, age plays a more prominent role with political control traditionally exercised by a council of elders. One attitude shared throughout the region is the importance placed on access to land. With three out of four Pacific Islanders living in a rural environment land forms an integral part of culture. Though systems of ownership, inheritance and use vary greatly, land is vested in groups based on common descent, place of residence, and participation in social and economic activities. Land means identifying with a family, a clan, a lineage. It is PACIFIC ISLANDS POPULATION & DEVELOPMENT 99 therefore valued for what it symbolizes, not just because it meets most subsistence requirements, and thus forms the basis for everyday survival for most Pacific Islanders. In light of this complexity it is not surprising that disagreement or disputes over land form an integral part of major social conflicts across the region. With land a finite resource, population growth per se has obvious consequences for the overall well-being of those attached to or dependent on it and its associated resources. And