Measuring Impact

Research that works for developing countries and Australia

 

Fiji

  1. Overview
  2. Country Strategy
  3. Priorities
  4. Key Program Managers
  5. Current Projects
  6. Concluded Projects
  7. Achievements
  8. Relevant Publications
  9. Country News and Stories
  10. Project Locations
  11. Country Office
  12. Country Portfolio
  13. AusAid and Other Briefs
  14. Fellowship Statistics
Overview

Due to their proximity to Australia, the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are of strategic importance to Australia. ACIAR's program in the PICs will continue to develop in line with broader Australian development assistance priorities. There is an increasing awareness of the importance of changing economic and environmental situations, and the increased vulnerability of small developing island states if flexibility, resilience and adaptation to change are not achieved. The PICs face a range of challenges including eroding tariff preferences, population and urban growth, migration of skilled labour, resource depletion and degradation, and risks from climate change and high and fluctuating food and energy prices. As described in Pacific 2020-challenges and opportunities for growth, ineffective policy implementation is seen as a significant impediment to development and progress.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries sustain many households and these sectors will supply the majority of livelihoods and provide the main source of food security for PICs for the foreseeable future. In Solomon Islands, local production of food crops contributes up to 71% of household income, while in Samoa and Tonga this figure is closer to 40%. Many smallholders live in isolated rural communities dependent
on household food production and intermittent crop, fish and small livestock sales. Transforming these systems into sustainable income-generating activities through improved productivity and marketing will enhance food security and self-reliance and reduce poverty. Key challenges for ACIAR and its partner agencies in working in the PICs include physical isolation of countries, poor transportation logistics,
human and organisation capacity constraints, land tenure disputes and uncertainties, a lack of infrastructure, poorly developed supply chains, a lack of harmonisation between countries (e.g. in biosecurity laws) and the need to link with major domestic and international markets.

Participation in regional projects that address common problems can help overcome the limited capacity of many countries to engage in collaborative activities. ACIAR has a strong emphasis on working with Pacific regional organisations to improve effective delivery of outputs. In partnership with the University of the South Pacific, ACIAR has implemented a postgraduate training program designed to increase capacity in the region through scholarships for research associated with ACIAR projects in the Pacific.

An expanded ACIAR-Pacific island countries program

ACIAR will allocate an additional 35% to the 2009-10 Pacific R&D program projects budget from the existing recurrent appropriation budget. The additional Pacific R&D project allocation will fund two multi-year initiatives:

  • research to improve the profitability of the plantation (tree) crop sector predominantly in Solomon Islands, particularly in oil palm and cocoa. Plantation tree crops are a priority due to the potential for economic growth and increases in grower incomes from these crops. For example, the estimated revenue to Solomon Islands economy from palm oil was US$10 million in 2008. R&D and capacity building to remove production constraints could see this rising to over US$30 million by 2014.

  • new initiatives on agricultural technology transfer and capacity building, including enhancement of the continuing University of the South Pacific (USP) postgraduate scholarship program. These set out to enhance adaptive agricultural R&D capacity within and between PICs and to foster co-ordination and implementation of regional agricultural technology transfer strategies. This will result in enhanced and broader impact from the outputs of previous, current and future ACIAR projects and capacity-building activities.

The increased allocation of funds to the Pacific R&D program from the existing ACIAR budget is additional to the support of a new ACIAR-managed program ('Exploiting opportunities for developing high-value agriculture, forestry and fisheries products in the Pacific nations'), which forms part of the whole-of-government Food Security through Rural Development initiative announced in the May 2009 Budget. Taken together, these initiatives will result in a 65% increase in of the ACIAR program size in the PICs from 2008-09 to 2009-10. In addition, ACIAR supports training activities (mainly postgraduate scholarships for study in Australia) and program management, totalling
$1 million annually.

Relationship to the AusAID regional strategy

AusAID's Pacific Regional Aid Strategy 2004-09 identifies four key themes: stronger broad-based growth; more effective, accountable and democratic government; improved law, justice and security; and enhanced service delivery. These themes are further underlined in the Pacific 2020 report with a commitment to address governance and institutions, infrastructure, regional cooperation and implementation of programs.

ACIAR's Pacific program, through its three research emphases (increased productivity and diversification through new crops, products and value-adding; development of sustainable management systems; underpinning of systems development, economics, marketing and biosecurity), contributes to these objectives primarily in the thematic area of broad-based economic growth. In fisheries, ACIAR will work in cooperation with AusAID's new Pacific fisheries strategy developed in 2007.

Country-specific issues

Fiji's poverty level is comparatively low although rural-urban income inequality is an increasing problem. In recent years, ACIAR's project emphasis has shifted from crop and livestock production to horticulture, aquaculture and agribusiness. There are potential opportunities for economic and technical research aimed at developing crop and agricultural industry alternatives to sugar and, in coordination with other government and donor initiatives, underpin opportunities for regional and international export market development in crops such as papaya, root crops and ornamentals. Developments in promising horticultural crops, and accompanying postharvest technologies and marketing options could also be explored. A major constraint in Fiji's horticulture sector is capacity building in R&D and this is another potential area for engagement with ACIAR programs. Opportunities for research to improve livelihoods in fisheries include: more productive inland farming systems, aquatic health including quarantine and import risk assessment, restocking as a tool to rehabilitate sea cucumber fisheries, and improved feed formulations for freshwater finfish and Macrobrachium. More research may be needed on the marketing of fisheries products. Some options for forestry cooperation include timber use, value-adding to mahogany and native species, plantation management and health, and increasing the potential of indigenous forestry species.