Page 26 - IB June 2020

COVID-19 COVID-19

Planting the Pacific Conference of Churches food garden. Photo: PCC

LESSONS IN RESILIENCE IN THE PACIFIC

By Emily Moli means to provide wage subsidy and stimulus packages similar
to those implemented by industrialised neighbours like Aus-
The global impacts of COVID-19 are unprecedented and tralia and New Zealand. This should signal the need for new
extend beyond the realm of health into the social, economic innovative strategies and models of development that have
and psychological aspects of people’s lives. Although the the capacity to respond effectively to disasters and crisis;
number of infections in Pacific Island Countries (PICs) may a strategy that requires identifying and building on local
be low because of their relative isolation, they still cannot strengths and innovations.
escape the consequences of the economic free-fall emanating One of the unique characteristics of Pacific communities is
from the lockdowns. The sudden demise of tourism, a major the dynamic interrelationship between traditional subsistence
money earner for many island states; loss of jobs and income; production and the market system. The subsistence sector in
decline in remittances and the dramatic shrinking of invest- the Pacific has a significant role in providing subsidies for cash
ment and economic opportunities have left families devas- income, as well as a socio-economic cushion in times of crisis,
tated and governments’ resources stretched to the limit. as we saw during the 2008 global meltdown. There is almost a
In many ways, the pandemic merely exacerbates the exist- collective intuition to revert to community-embedded survival
ing economic challenges and further deepens the poverty and values and strategies when crisis occurs. For instance, the
vulnerability that many Pacific peoples have been experienc- resurrection of the age-old reciprocity system which is now
ing anyway. It exposes in more blatant ways some pre-existing being enthusiastically embraced in Fiji (Barter for Better Fiji)
social, economic and gender inequities. Those in vulnerable to counter the cash shortfall; the rush to promote backyard
employment such as the hospitality industry, infrastructure, subsistence farming; and re-engineering of indigenous social
construction and manufacturing and those in the informal protection systems of support, shows that the basis of resil-
sector are amongst the first victims of the economic squeeze. ience is locked within local cultural and innovation systems.
The aid, debt and remittance-based Pacific economies are The challenge is, how do we incorporate these values of
struggling to respond effectively as many do not have the resilience into the formal policy process?

26 Islands Business, June 2020