Thursday, 06 August 2009
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BAINIMARAMA’S FIJI: A Hybrid of Doom that will Muddle On
How will Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama respond to the challenges facing Fiji with its Isolation as a rouge state?
Will Voreqe’s illegal government make a break from the past and enable the economic growth needed to thrive in uncertain times, or will things only get worse?
In our case only two scenarios can be envisaged: ‘doomsday’ or ‘muddling on’.
Doomsday Scenario
Under the doomsday scenario the Pacific island countries fail to meet the challenges confronting them.
In 1993, the authors of Pacific 2010 imagined a Pacific by 2010 in which:
‘… population growth is careering beyond control: it has doubled to 9 million: malnutrition isspreading and is already endemic in squatter settlements … there are beggars on the streetsof South Pacific towns … levels of unemployment are high … deaths from AIDS, heart disease and cancers have greatly increased … aid donors have turned their attention elsewhere …crime has increased … pollution and land degradation has spiralled … much of the surviving rain forest has been logged … coastal fisheries have been placed under threat from over fishing … skills shortages in the labour market yawn wide (Cole 1993).
Much of what the Pacific 2010 authors predicted appears to have come true, but NOT in the countries predicted, rather the prognosis was spot on for our very own Fiji, the country that was thought to be immune from such doomsday predictions, until of course King Frank came along with his guns.
Muddling-on scenario
Duncan and Gilling (2005) have presented a muddling-on scenario for the region.
Given the continuation of aid and existing migration opportunities, most … should be ableto muddle on, with likely continuation of the deterioration of services and increasing levels of poverty. With the aging of developed countries, opportunities for off-shore employment for semi-skilled and skilled labour should increase. However, there will be a continued growth of urban areas in PIC’s and, with the loss of younger people from rural areas, aging of populations in rural areas. Thus the safety net of the village will not be so robust and groups most likely to suffer will be elderly women and children experiencing deteriorating education and health services.
Poor economic growth will exacerbate these problems because the institutions expected to maintain law and order will be starved of funds.
This is a scenario in which Fiji will not thrive, but nor will it collapse.
Neither the doomsday nor the muddling-on scenario presents an inspiring view of the future.
But the muddling-on scenario recognises that some countries will probably do better than others and that there are two important supports for the Pacific – foreign aid and workers’ remittances.
On a per person basis the Pacific islands receive the most aid of any group in the world.
This is what JVB does not understand, it is not the dollar sum value of aid, but the sustainable empowering ‘nature’ of same and most importantly, the access to unlimited potential and networks within the International flora when you play your part in the TEAM as a credible, gracious, responsible, law abiding leader that respects the human rights of the people.
Ref: Pacific 2020
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