UNFPA COUNTRY SUPPORT TEAM
for the South Pacific

Discussion Paper No. 9

"The Formulation and Implementation of Population Policies in Small, Dependent, Island Economies: Their Role and Significance"

by

William J House
ILO Adviser on Population and
Development Planning and Policy,
UNFPA CST for the South Pacific,
Suva, Fiji

Paper prepared for the ILO/UNFPA Workshop on Population Policy and Development Planning Strategies, ILO, Geneva 26 October - 1 November, 1994

The views and opinions contained in this Paper
have not been officially cleared and thus do not
necessarily represent the position of the
United Nations Population Fund

Preface

The primary purpose of the UNFPA Country Support Team for the South Pacific based in Suva, Fiji, is to provide countries with high-quality technical support services to meet their needs, leading towards national self-reliance in the population field.

Among the functions of the Country Support Team towards this end, the injunction "to provide active and close backstopping to the local pool of national experts" implies more frequent interaction between CST Advisers and national counterparts than is afforded by the occasional in-country technical advisory visit.

This Discussion Paper series has been initiated by the CST, Suva, in an attempt to establish a dialogue among national population programme personnel on the multidimensional aspects of population programmes. The major objective of the series is to help in the conceptualization and development of a more holistic programme approach.

The outstanding feature of the demographic situation in the Pacific region is the great heterogeneity found among these small countries. Apart from the generally high natural rate of population increase resulting from high fertility and declining mortality, infant morality and teenage pregnancies are causes of concern. International outmigration and rural-urban migration are significant in some countries while unemployment and underemployment, particularly among certain social and economic groups, are widespread. All of this is set in a context where the economic base of most countries is weak, their potential for attaining rapid development is severely limited, and many remain heavily dependent on inflows of international assistance to fund investment, as well as recurrent, expenditures.

This paper portrays some of this diversity in social, economic and demographic conditions and illustrates the difficulties of formulating and implementing comprehensive, multisectoral population policies and programmes. A case study of the Solomon Islands is presented, a country to which the author recently completed an exploratory mission, and where UNFPA anticipates assisting the national government to launch a major initiative.

To promote a continuing exchange of views and experiences, we would like to invite comments from readers.

October
1994

Stephen Chee,
Director

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC SETTING

The Demography of the Pacific Island Countries (PICs)

The Economies of the PICs and Related Population Issues

3. POPULATION PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC FOR THE 1990s: WHAT ROLE FOR POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES?

4. PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL POPULATION POLICIES IN THE PACIFIC

A. Basic Data Collection and Analysis

B. Population-Development Integration

5. THE RATIONALE FOR INTEGRATED POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES IN THE PACIFIC REGION

6. POLICY FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

A New Beginning for Population Policy in The Solomon Islands20

7. CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

1. INTRODUCTION

The South Pacific Region (see map on next page) extends over a vast area of ocean, is extremely diverse and heterogeneous in terms of the countries and peoples that inhabit them, and exhibits great variation in economic structure, physical features, demographic behaviour and development potential. The 15 countries covered by the UNFPA Country Support Team (CST) vary in population size from less than 2,000 in Tokelau to over 4 million in Papua New Guinea. Population density varies from only 8 persons per square kilometre in Niue and PNG to 428 in Nauru.

The annual rate of natural increase ranges from a high of over 4 per cent in Marshall Islands to a low of 1.5 percent in Tokelau. Mortality has been declining in several countries, and the crude death rate (CDR) is less than 10 in all but four countries, mainly because of a young population structure. Infant and maternal morality rates are high in many countries while mortality differentials exist between regions and population groups within countries. Total fertility rates (TFRs) vary from a low in Palau, of 3.1 children ever born, to a high in Nauru of 7.5. Contraceptive prevalence rates ranging from 2 per cent in Papua New Guinea to 40 per cent in Tuvalu have been reported, although many of these estimates are very unreliable because reporting systems of service statistics are grossly underdeveloped.

The population growth rate varies from 4.2 per cent in the Marshall Islands - one of the highest in the world - to negative growth in Cook Islands and Tonga, mainly due to out-migration (the TFR in these two countries is 5.5 and 4.9, respectively).

The countries vary greatly with regard to their population-related concerns although certain problems-closely spaced pregnancies, low contraceptive prevalence rates, high maternal and infant mortality rates (IMRs), and increased teenage pregnancies - are ubiquitous. Although urbanization is generally low, rural-urban migration has compounded problems of high population growth. Several countries are experiencing urban growth rates as high as 5-6 per cent per annum. Unemployment is adversely affecting the labour supply situation in rural areas of Samoa and Tonga, which have significant emigration as well. Fiji and several other countries are also experiencing high emigration within and outside the region.

Most South Pacific countries have a weak economic base, and their potential for attaining rapid development is limited. In terms of gross national product (GNP) per capita, the Pacific Island countries may be divided into three groups: below US$500, are Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu; between $500 and $1,000 are Micronesia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu; and between $1,000 and $2,000 are Cook Islands, Fiji and Niue. In Nauru, per capita GNP is more than $20,000 due to small population size and the export of phosphate. Statistics on production and income in the region are deficient and therefore possibly misleading. Unemployment is high, especially among the youth and residents of urban areas. More significantly, the predominantly subsistence nature of the economies and population pressure on the land have contributed to growing underemployment. Although reliable data are often lacking, primary school enrolment rates are generally high, with little difference between males and females, although drop - out rates are higher among females, leaving girls with lower rates of school completion. Countries in Melanesia, particularly PNG and the Solomon Islands, are still far from attaining universal primary education.

Pressing policy issues in the region as a whole are the fragility of the environment, the causes of environmental deterioration, including externally induced global warming, and the effects of that deterioration on the sustainability of potential development.

Nearly all countries have expressed specific concerns about population trends and their potential deleterious effects. Yet, few of them have explicit population policies designed to influence those trends nor the capacity and know-how to integrate demographic factors into their overall development plans. High fertility and external migration remain serious and sensitive issues. Most countries have recognized the need to integrate population and development policies and planning. Also, recognizing that high population growth rates are detrimental to economic and social advancement, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have adopted fairly comprehensive, national population policies and strategies. The extent to which they are being satisfactorily implemented in practice, however, remains questionable.

As their primary source of demographic information, almost all countries conduct population and housing censuses. The content and quality of census data among countries vary considerably. Moreover, the national capability for analysing census data differs significantly, and in several instances, relevant analysis has either been delayed or never been undertaken, largely because countries lack skilled personnel to analyze census data. The expertise needed for making population estimates and projections and for integrating them in planning exercises is also severely deficient.

Because various forms of discrimination against women are widespread, the major thrust in any strategy to raise the status of women in South Pacific countries needs to be an improvement in their position as a human resource, e.g., in education, reproductive health and labour productivity.

Poor maternal health is also a problem. The major causes are malnutrition, obesity, infectious diseases, excessive labour and insufficient maternal services, both in terms of the quantity and the quality and accessibility of such services. A second set of causes is related to women's general workload and daily activities. The majority of women spend the reproductive period of their lives either being pregnant or breast-feeding their children. In addition, they work in gardens, harvest, cook, collect firewood and water, and care for children and other family members. The average national maternal mortality rate is reported to be 800-900 per 100,000 live births (UNFPA, 1991, p.3). Life expectancy is approximately 60 years; it is lowest - 50 years - in Papua New Guinea. The IMR varies from below 20 per 1,000 live births in Fiji to 83 in Kiribati.

In societies where there is no social security system, children are considered old-age security for the elderly, which is one reason why women need to obtain their husbands' consent to use contraception. Religious opposition to contraception from the Catholic Church is also prevalent throughout the region; as elsewhere, the church gives its assent only to natural methods.

Although it is difficult to obtain reliable data on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), gonorrhoea and syphilis are prevalent in urban Fiji, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a potentially major health problem in Papua New Guinea and is increasing every year. Occasional HIV-positive cases are also reported in other countries. Various types of cancer are a major cause of death in Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia and Tonga. Regular and widespread cervical cancer screening programmes do not exist (UNFPA, 1991).

This paper portrays the extensively diverse social, economic and demographic conditions in the Pacific Region, the underdeveloped state of their economies and the equally underdeveloped data and knowledge bases available to population and development planners for policy-making and implementation.

To illustrate the difficulties of formulating comprehensive, multisectoral population policies and implementing and monitoring their varied strategies, a case study of the Solomon Islands is presented.

This is a country which the author recently visited for the first time and which has had little success in putting into practice a rather narrowly focused population policy. From this case study the paper ends on a positive and optimistic note. Despite past problems and the lack of success, the Solomon Islands, with support from the UNFPA, is about to launch a major new initiative which has the potential to correct past mistakes and to redesign a multisectoral population policy which is urgently required to address serious population-related development problems.

2. THE DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC SETTING

The Demography of the Pacific Island Countries (PICs)

The outstanding feature of the demographic situation in the Pacific is the tremendous heterogeneity found among the small 15 countries served by the two UNFPA offices and one UNFPA Country Support Team. The details are portrayed in table 1.

Table 1: Demographic Indicators for the South Pacific

Country Population size at last census Total fertility rate (TFR) Crude birth rate Crude death rate Annual population growth rate 1980s Infant mortality rate
Cook Islands 18,617 3.5 27 8 1.1 25
FSM 100,749 5.6 38 8 3.6 52
Fiji 715,375 3.2 24 5 2.0 22
Kiribati 72,335 3.8 36 13 2.3 65
Marshall Islands 43,380 7.2 49 9 4.2 63
Nauru 9,919 7.5 24 5 2.9 26
Niue 2,239 3.5 16 5 -2.4 12
Palau 15,122 3.1 22 8 2.2 25
PNG 4,028,600 5.4 35 12 2.3 72
Solomon Islands 285,176 5.8 40 8 3.4 38
Tokelau 1,577 3.6 32 9 -1.3 30
Tonga 94,649 5.2 32 7 0.5 26
Tuvalu 9,043 3.4 29 9 1.7 41
Vanuatu 142,419 5.3 38 9 2.8 45
Western Samoa 61,298 4.8 34 8 0.5 21

Source: South Pacific Commission, 1994

These demographic conditions and prospective trends will fuel a rapid increase in social service demand in the Pacific in the near future. Most of the countries share certain demographic attributes: young populations, high rates of fertility, low mortality and a highly mobile population and labour force. In the Federated States of Micronesia, (FSM), Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, more than 40 percent of the population is under 15 years of age; elsewhere, more than a third of the population is under 15. The large number of young people relative to the size of the total population generates high demand for primary health care and schooling, and will, eventually, lead to an insatiable demand for income generating employment opportunities in the formal sector labour market.

Most of these mini-nations are experiencing relatively high fertility with current total fertility rates clustering in the range of 4-5.5 births per woman. Only in Fiji does the fertility rate begin to approach the lower level of comparable lower-middle income nations. A combination of high fertility and falling mortality characterizes the early stages of the demographic transition in which they now find themselves. Demand for health care, education, and other social services rises rapidly during the early stages of the transition due to the relatively large number of births, the greater number of elderly, and the burgeoning population at the lower age distributions.

Throughout history emigration has been an important demographic safety valve for small 1 nations, and the South Pacific is no exception. No other region in the world has such relatively easy access to the labour markets of three of the world's most advanced economies - the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Those countries which have most actively exported manpower - Tonga, Western Samoa, Niue and Fiji, have both the lowest rates of absolute population growth and the highest social indicators in the region. In Tonga and Western Samoa, remittances from overseas migrants finance practically as much consumption as does agriculture, the largest productive sector. Although a wide range of individuals migrate from the Pacific, those most likely to leave have secondary or post-secondary education and tend to come from the upper-income, urban population. The result is that skill shortages frequently occur and expatriate labour is widely employed throughout the region's labour markets.

The Economies of the PICs and Related Population Issues

Another feature of the situation in the PICs is the great difference in the resource base and development potential of these island states. At one extreme lies Papua New Guinea, relatively large in terms of land area and population size (and low density) and potentially rich in natural resources, fertile agricultural land and mineral deposits. Yet, it remains among the least developed countries in the Region, is experiencing relatively rapid population growth, little external migration but rapid rural-urban migration and has a grossly underdeveloped transport and communications system. Its unsatisfactory social indicators - high infant and maternal mortality, high illiteracy and far from universal primary education, and a life expectancy at birth of about 50 - suggest that, despite PNG's explicit population policy, the socio-economic and development conditions in the country, including the low status of women, make the rapid take-up of family planning extremely difficult. This remains among the very major challenges in the Region.

At the other extreme are small atoll countries, such as Tuvalu, which has few natural resources, a small population size (but very high density), little agriculture and exports, but experiences relatively low fertility and population growth, and relatively good social indicators in terms of life expectancy, mortality and literacy and educational enrolments. International male migration to work in overseas merchant shipping is a disruptive factor in the social life of Tuvaluans, but the principal source of foreign exchange earnings for the country and the individual families. Yet, thedevelopment potential of Tuvalu remains severely limited and its very existence and survival remains threatened by the "greenhouse" phenomenon of global warming and the rise of the oceans.

The remaining countries in the Region face various combinations of these scenarios with, for example, the Marshall Islands having extremely high fertility and rapid population growth (perhaps the highest in the world), little overseas migration and with limited development potential, and the Cook Islands, Tonga and Samoa, having experienced past heavy out-migration, now benefitting from remittance inflows and, incidentally, the potential for raising incomes through tourism, Yet, the age distribution of these populations is distorted, with relatively aged populations, leading to implications for dependency, labour force growth and skill formation. Fiji has seen a significant decline in fertility over the years, but this has stalled recently among the indigenous Fijians. The national economy is much more diversified than many others in the Region, social indicators are impressive and the country is well into its demographic transition.

The conclusion is, therefore, that the experience facing each and every country in the Region is often very different and even a simplified classification of the nations into Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia categories, hardly does justice to the diverse social, economic development and demographic situations each one faces. The implication is that any attempt to design and plan interventionist strategies to influence demographic and development outcomes must be finely tuned and accommodate the country-specific social, cultural, economic and demographic situations which prevail.

Other striking features of these economies are the relatively high levels of income and commendable set of social indicators attained, despite the adverse effects of their being small and isolated, and being largely depleted of natural resources. These indicators are illustrated in table 2.

Development performance in the PICs during the last decade and more has been marked by what the World Bank (1993) has called "the Pacific Paradox":

"Virtually no growth occurred in average real per capita income during this period despite a favourable natural and human resource endowment, high levels of aid, and reasonably prudent economic management. Per capita real GNP grew by a mere 0.1 per cent annually, which was in sharp contrast not only to intrinsic potential but also to the performance of other island nations groups; the Caribbean islands, for example, grew at 2.4 per cent and the Indian Ocean islands at 3.7 per cent" (World Bank, 1993, p.1).

The World Bank has identified some of the sources of this low growth in its eight Pacific Island member countries, namely Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. While rates of public investment have been high, growth has been dismal. Unit costs of economic activities and the delivery of public sector services are raised by the small size, dispersion and remoteness of the PICs. Furthermore, the composition of public investment has been oriented towards long-gestation projects such as roads, schools and health facilities. Some of these investments have been poorly planned and badly implemented, resulting in low returns. In contrast, private investment rates have been modest, perhaps because of the crowding out effect of public investment, a poor policy environment and, once again, the adverse effects of scale and isolation. Certainly, the public sector wage structure has had a carry-over effect on the private sector, resulting in raised wage levels and interest rates. Distorted trade, tax and credit regimes supported high-cost and uncompetitive investments.2

Table 2: Pacific Human Development Indicators

Country Life Expectancy at Birth Adult Literacy Rate (15+) Mean Years on Schooling Educational Attainment* GDP Per Capita (US$) HDI
Cook Islands 69.8 99 8.4 2.79 3416 0.985
Federated States of Micronesia 64.1 81 7.6 1.91 1474 0.604
Fiji 63.1 87 6.8 2.08 1991 0.652
Kiribati 60.2 93 6.1 2.24 461 0.439
Marshall Islands 61.1 91 8.5 2.46 1576 0.611
Nauru 55.5 90 7.3 - - -
Niue 66.0 99 8.3 2.78 3051 0.879
Palau 67.0 98 9.6 2.96 3289 0.939
Papua New Guinea 49.6 52 2.1 0.00 999 0.138
Western Samoa 63.1 98 9.1 2.83 722 0.578
Solomon Islands 60.7 23 2.8 0.09 529 0.191
Tokelau 68.0 99 - - - -
Tonga 69.0 99 7.1 2.63 1396 0.723
Tuvalu 67.2 99 6.8 2.59 1068 0.652
Vanuatu 62.8 64 4.0 0.75 1020 0.424
Note: * Combines into one index Adult Literacy and Mean Years of Schooling
Source: UNDP Pacific Human Development Report 1994

Rapid population growth has been responsible for the diversion of some of these investible resources to the provision of public services. An additional dilemma has been posed by the affluent subsistence nature of many of the PICs. The adequate supply and fertility of available land and plentiful fish staples from the oceans raise the reservation income which has to be offered by the modern sector to induce labour to be drawn out of the rural economy. The high level of aid flows on very favourable terms, sometimes improperly deployed, have not always been beneficial3. The result of the high volume of such aid has often been an incapacity to absorb such generosity, the construction of physical capital and infrastructure which cannot be maintained effectively by national recurrent budgets and an ever-expanding public service required to design, implement and manage projects initiated by aid donors (Cole, 1993). Pressures have emerged for donors to shift some of this aid to support recurrent costs and to divert some of these resources to the private sector.

Bertram (1986, 1993) has provided a perceptive analysis of these small PICs. He argues, rather convincingly, that the long run deficits between exports and imports, and between government expenditure and locally generated revenue, are the ex-post consequences of these economies being driven not by productive factor incomes from domestic industries, but by the flows of rent income to which they hold inherited and negotiated entitlements. Such rents, embedded in constitutions (e.g. Niue), flowing from aid agreements, or resulting from remittance flows from large-scale population migrations in the past, have helped to determine the economic structures, particularly bloated public sectors, and the high levels of material welfare attained in these countries.

For some of the smallest countries, therefore, the sustainability of prevailing living standards, and the prospects for future increases in these standards, rests on the durability of existing and future sources of rent income. As a result the "development problem" for planners and policymakers is not so much the promotion of modern, capitalist, tradeable - goods - producing sectors, but of how such rental incomes can be made more secure and predictable, and be allocated among members of the island society, to determine the "mix" of economic activities. Evidently, scarcity of natural resources has ceased to act as a binding constraint on levels of consumption in some of the smaller, very open economic systems. In the larger economies, however, such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the Solomon Islands, the challenge to development planning is much more conventional, in the form of rapid population growth astride underdeveloped natural and human resources, and the need to generate earned foreign exchange to pay for strategic imports. There are intense pressures to promote employment opportunities to satisfy the rising expectations of a burgeoning population and better schooled labour force, whose aspirations have been increased by an expanded education system and wider contacts made with the outside world.

3. POPULATION PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC FOR THE 1990s: WHAT ROLE FOR POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES?

While the wide diversity of demographic conditions in the Region has been illustrated, planners and policy-makers share many similar concerns in all the countries. Apart from the problems caused by rapid natural, and often realised, population growth, induced by high fertility and decreasing mortality, further reduction in infant, child and maternal mortality, including adolescent childbearing, is a prime concern in all countries. Progress is linked to improvements in health, health services provision, nutrition, village sanitation and food production and consumption. Internal migration, from rural to urban areas, and the consequent need for a viable employment promotion strategy, is a growing problem in most of the countries and places intense pressure on resources available for physical and social services. Unemployment, crime and delinquency is present in most countries, perhaps exemplified by the extreme case of Papua New Guinea.

Population growth makes it much more difficult for targets to be met for increasing education, health and other services, let alone to maintain the present inadequate level of coverage. Both financial and human resources are strained by the growing demands for services by an expanding population. A further binding constraint is imposed by the narrow, aid-dependent structure of the economies portrayed above.

One generally common labour market feature of the countries in the Pacific has been the slow and disappointing growth in formal sector job opportunities. The labour market has been characterized by a heavy reliance on public sector employment, with a low rate of female labour force participation and a dependence on agriculture to generate new, often marginal, openings. Since it is widely accepted that changes in demographic behaviour depend heavily on changes in the status of women, and the latter is a function of increasing female labour force participation in non-traditional, non-agricultural activities, the minimal structural changes realised in the economies of Pacific Island countries have not been conducive to rapid behavioural changes in fertility. In addition, rising expectations of an increasingly educated youth, more inclined to migrate to urban areas, make the issue of absorbing the rapidly growing labour force into productive employment one of the principal issues for integrated population and development planning in the context of population policy formulation and implementation. This problem, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the need for integrated, multi-dimensional planning strategies in the 1990s and into the 21st Century.

In the past, international migration from the Region has provided a safety value for ambitious education job-seekers who, having found work in Australia or New Zealand, have provided a major source of remittance income for those members of the family left at home. Their success has not been without its drawbacks since it contributed to skill shortages in the Region and led to distorted age - sex structures in the demographic composition of the home countries. Such options for overseas migration, however, are drying up as recession in the recipient countries leads to tighter control on immigration. Indeed, a number of countries may well face the inverse problem, of having to absorb a relatively large number of returnees in a very short time period. This will call for innovative comprehensive policies to avoid frustration, discontent and possible social unrest.

4. PREREQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL POPULATION POLICIES IN THE PACIFIC

A few countries in the Pacific Region - Marshall Islands, FSM, Solomon Islands, PNG - have endorsed official policy statements while others, such as Fiji, have incorporated population chapters in their Development Plans. Some are in the process of formulating population policies, such as Tuvalu, Niue and Western Samoa while others are embarking on a major revision of policy, given their failure to implement standing policy (e.g. Marshall Islands; Solomon Islands). All of these policy statements acknowledge the links between population growth and the increasing demands on the sectors of health, education, employment, food and agriculture, the environment and natural resources. Inevitably, they tend to focus mainly on issues relating to fertility, mortality, aspects of health, including family planning, and internal and external migration. Of course, those countries without an explicit population policy have been implementing policies all along which impinge on the population-development nexus, since most have programmes for rural development, MCH/FP, population education etc. Therefore, almost all of the countries show an alert awareness of the overall population issue and consequent problems, as reflected in policy pronouncements. What are invariably lacking are comprehensive integrated policies on population and human resources development, as reflected in current and reliable data and knowledge gaps on the inter-relationships between population and development factors and the lack of institutional structures capable of ensuring consistency in policy interventions and programmes. An additional, extremely important issue relates to the role of population and development policy options in such situations described earlier, where their economies are small, narrowly based, extremely open and vulnerable, and heavily aid-dependent. It is pertinent to question the efficacy and role of policy formulation and "planning" in situations where the number of policy instruments are more narrow and fewer than in larger, more diverse and less open economies and societies.

A. Basic Data Collection and Analysis

i. The Prevailing Situation

To implement policies and programmes to influence demographic outcomes (population influencing policies - family planning programmes, IEC/FLE, raising women's status including education etc.) or to accommodate increasing numbers of people (population accommodating policies - increased health and education services, employment opportunities, food provision etc) an essential prerequisite is a sound database. Such data should be timely and current, reliable, divisible by geographic area and socio-economic group and amenable to in-depth analysis. To be utilised effectively in policy formulation and planning exercises it is inadequate simply to collect demographic data, e.g. point estimates of fertility, mortality and migration. To explain inter-geographic area or inter-socio-economic status differentials in behavioural patterns is the raison d'etre of the study of population-development interrelationships. Thus, such demographic data must be accompanied by information on the socio-economic variables relating to the same unit of observation. Such household-based data must include:

A cursory survey of data sources and availability in the South Pacific reveals the gross inadequacy of currently available data, according to this extensive list. While great reliance is placed on the decennial Census of Population, analysis of the data is very often delayed such that the information is out-of-date for planning purposes by the time it is made available. In any case, a population census is not the best instrument for collecting such detailed information. In the small countries of the South Pacific, it should be feasible to conduct multi-round household surveys to collect this kind of information on a regular basis, perhaps annually or semi-annually. Unfortunately, such regular data collecting exercises do not seem to have been undertaken very often. Planners and policy makers in the Region need to ask why, and to devise methods, and obtain the necessary training of national staff and requisite funding, to carry out such exercises. Only then will it be possible to explore some of the complex interrelationships in the South Pacific context which are essential for finely tuned, strategic population-development planning.

Adding to this, greater efforts need to be made to establish mechanisms for the regular registration of vital events, births, deaths and marriages. PNG's current attempt to revive the Village Registration System, inherited from the colonial days, but which was allowed to fall into disarray, is a commendable example.

Finally, in order to monitor the implementation and success achieved in the family planning programmes, a good management information system is required which feeds data back from the service delivery points to the decision-makers at headquarters. Again, the South Pacific countries seem to have a major deficit in this area.

Therefore, this section has pointed the way for a major thrust of the programme. The data and knowledge base to be used in population-development programmes needs to be made more timely and relevant, and increase in scope. This will cost money and require well trained personnel.4

ii. Steps to Improve Basic Data Collection and Analysis5

Civil Registration: Since this provides the most basic information for monitoring changes in the health and demographic situation, it is essential that coverage be improved. In many of the Micronesian and Polynesian countries where coverage is already reasonably high, it should be feasible to extend it. What is required is the political will to create viable systems and the willing cooperation of agencies who could make them work. In many of these countries, village chiefs or councils, women's groups, district education and health staff, police, NGOs, Churches and other groups could all be involved in encouraging the registration of births, deaths and marriages. With a strong commitment, a series of national and district seminars would be required to provide information on how the system might work. In some cases, modifications to the basic system might be required, but these would be slight. The key is commitment and involvement at the grassroots level.

For countries in Melanesia with virtually no registration systems, the same involvement at the grassroots is essential, but the achievement of full coverage is more ambitious. Costs would be far higher as the administrative and legal machinery would need to be established or strengthened. The strategy in these cases might be to focus on a few sample areas at the outset. These experiments would help to identify the more important constraints or influences on improving registration. In time they would serve to demonstrate the requirements for success of the system as it is extended to other areas.

Migration, Health and Other Administrative Records: Users need to recognise the potential usefulness of these records and the relative ease with which they might be compiled into statistics. National statistical offices need to work with the substantive agency in improving base record systems, including forms and information flows. In many cases it might be possible to network processing systems to transfer raw or processed data directly to the statistics offices for further processing and publication.

Population Censuses: Further encouragement is need to promote national capabilities in the skilled areas of design, mapping, data processing and analysis. The key is training in-country where it is feasible, overseas where it is not. Greater interaction is required between producers and users of data, formally at seminars, less formally in open discussion, of what is needed and how it can be produced.

Sample Surveys: These are almost certainly grossly under-utilised in the Region. They can potentially help to explain more complex behaviour related to family formation and migration than any other source. Recent experience in other countries has shown that even relatively small samples can produce valuable results, so long as the methodology is sound, and training is appropriate and field control is effective. They also require far closer cooperation between statisticians and users in defining the scope of a survey and in guiding the analysis. Technical requirements for designing, selecting and controlling samples are more demanding and require special training. The technical assistance that might be needed to develop survey capabilities might justify a regional rather than country approach to survey taking.

Gender Issues: As the concerns for women's status become more widespread there is a growing demand for gender sensitive statistics that reflect changing situations and roles. Unfortunately, in many countries there is a dearth of relevant data. While population censuses and surveys can be more fully tabulated to provide information by sex for all major variables, the statistical offices have been accused of a lack of urgency in developing new statistical instruments to address issues of critical concern to women. Thus, data relating to the perceptions of women as victims of crime and aggression, combating stereotype attitudes to changing roles at home and in the work place, are for the most part non-existent. Surely, if we are to promote and realise a completed demographic transition in the South Pacific, we must know much more about the roles and activities of women. Such information is the fundamental prerequisite for designing policies to redress their inferior situation and to raise their status.

B. Population-Development Integration

i. Institutional Mechanisms for Implementing Integrated and Population - Development Planning and Policies

Because of the small size of Pacific Island countries it is evidently impractical to conceive of specialist population planning units in Ministries of Finance and Planning, as they have been erected in other regions of the world. However, there is a definite need to identify individual personnel (the number depending on the size of the country) whose primary responsibility would be to serve as the focal point for issues relating to population and who could construct well-defined linkages to line - Ministry planners to ensure that population integration indeed takes place. This structure also requires an assembly point for middle-level planners/technocrats to meet regularly to exchange views and information and to direct calls for technical assistance to the most relevant resource. In other words, there is a great need to form a working group which might be called "the National Population and Development Committee", composed of technical officials who meet regularly to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the population policy and development goals of the nation. In so doing, they would identify data and knowledge gaps, and research priorities, ensure that their sectoral policies and programmes are consistent with the overall programme goals and, in particular, that there is a clear population message emanating from official Government circles. This Committee would be strategically placed to serve as the Secretariat for some high-level policy-making body, the National Population Council, and be capable of demonstrating policy-options to the higher body so that theirs are well-informed decisions on important issues of principle and policy.

ii. Practical Realities and Research Requirements for Integration

If population factors are to be integrated into the development planning process, sectoral planning officials need to be well versed in population-related issues. But how many line-Ministry planners in the South Pacific are capable of carrying out their own population projections for use in their own sectoral work, the most basic of integration tasks? Therefore, a concerted effort needs to be made to expose all sectoral planning officials to the uses of population projections in their specific work and to show them how to integrate such population-related concerns. In some countries we may be talking of less than 10 people. It could be argued that international organisations such the UNFPA, and its CST, should take prime responsibility for ensuring that every project it sponsors in the Region conducts such workshops; and that every technical backstopping mission takes time out to update the practical skills of national officials. Programme focus should be initially the training of trainers, the latter being the officials in the Planning Ministry who could later train the line-Ministry officials in such techniques. Of course, perhaps all of these officials will not be population professionals, but our mandate includes awareness-raising of population- related issues, particularly amongst sectoral planning professionals.

Demographic and socio-economic research is a much more specialised area and, no doubt, too specialised to be initiated and undertaken on a day-to-day basis by the typical line-Ministry planner. However, before research is undertaken it is necessary to identify research priorities for each country in the population arena. Given the nature of the integration challenge, these issues are necessarily interdisciplinary and multisectoral. For example:

These are just a few examples of some of the obvious research issues prevailing in the Region. The UNFPA CST has the mandate and potential to contribute a great deal to helping national-level planners to crystallize these issues and to help them identify the policy-related questions to be researched. Again, small-scale research projects could be technically backstopped by CST members with the assistance of collaborators from the small number of universities in the Region and from academics in the USA, New Zealand and Australia.

The complex interrelationships between population factors and development need to be explored with the use of the kind of data mentioned above. Who will analyse the data, test a set of plausible hypotheses and draw inferences from the results of the tests and feed the results into policy formulation and programming exercises? The need for well-trained population-development specialists to undertake such exercises is readily apparent and who are conspicuously absent in the South Pacific. However, because of the small size of the countries in the Region and the need for generalists rather than specialists in Government planning circles, it is extremely difficult to justify the existence of such persons working full-time in planning units. Evidently, generalist planners and policy makers in the Pacific need to acquire a good deal of specialist technical know-how to fulfill their planning functions effectively.

5. THE RATIONALE FOR INTEGRATED POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT POLICIES IN THE PACIFIC REGION

The characteristics of the economies of the island nations of the Pacific - small, isolated, open etc. - all with variants of the kinds of demographic and development problems found in other LDCs, fully justifies the need for each country to design explicit population policies. To date, only a minority of these country have formulated such policies but, with the assistance of UNFPA and the Suva-based CST, many more are in the process of undertaking such an exercise.

Those countries which are implementing explicit policies have been concerned in the documents to address:

Given the relatively underdeveloped state of knowledge and research on demographic - development linkages in most of the Pacific countries, one of the principal advantages arising from the process of formulating and designing a population policy is to focus national attention on the issues. The problems arising from rapid population growth and uneven distribution are given a high profile and in these small islands, where most citizens have access to radio, widespread discussion often ensures. For example, problems relating to the lack of employment opportunities, pressure on social services, high dependency, land pressure and land disputes, inadequate food production, over-dependence on imported processed foods and the consequent adverse effects on nutritional status of certain vulnerable groups, and urban deterioration are often discussed on radio and in public addresses by politicians and other opinion leaders, either in anticipation or resulting from the formulation of a population policy. Above all else, the existence of an explicit policy can sometimes ensure that decision-makers attempt to integrate and account for demographic issues. Donor support for population programmes is also easier to acquire when a country shows it is seriously confronting its demographic problems via an explicit statement of policy.

6. POLICY FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

The following case study of population policy formulation and implementation in the Solomon Islands clearly illustrates the kinds of difficulties and constraints population and development practitioners face in the Pacific Region. It draws on my recent experience following a two week mission to the country in August-September 1994.

The Solomon Islands is the only country in the Region which is designated as a priority country for UNFPA assistance. This follows from the inferior ranking of some of its social, economic and demographic indicators.

The country is a widely scattered archipelago of six large and over 300 small islands, with a total land area of 28 thousand square kilometres. At the time of the 1986 Census the population numbered 285,176 and had grown over the intercensal decade at the annual rate of 3.5%, among the highest in the world. In 1994 its population is likely to approximate 375 thousand. Meanwhile, its annual rate of growth of GDP during the 1980s amounted to 2.8%, such that per capita income declined to US$710 by 1992 (Population Reference Bureau, 1994)6. The great majority of the population resides in rural areas and derives income from a mix of subsistence and commercial agriculture activities. Less than one-fifth of the labour force is employed in the formal sector of the economy, and of these, nearly one-half are in the public sector. The high rate of population growth has exacerbated the situation and placed insatiable demands on the provision of social services and fuelled the demand for urban-based employment.

Despite respectable levels of investment in educational institutions and improvements in their accessibility, much more needs to be accomplished. The adult literacy rate is low (less than 30%), primary and secondary school coverage is only 75% and 30% respectively, and barely a few hundred students obtain post-secondary education each year. Infant morality (47/1000) and fertility (TFR of 5.8) are high7, malaria remains endemic, and the vast majority of the population still has no access to clean water supplies or a functioning health clinic. Human resource development initiatives in the 1990s and beyond require increased emphasis on the network of social service delivery i.e. investment in primary and secondary education, community and population education programmes, maternal and child health services, family planning, and the prevention and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases.

A series of seminars and workshops culminated in a 1988 "High Level Workshop on Population Issues and Development" supported by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MOHMS) and sponsored by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the South Pacific Alliance for Family Health (SPAFH). As a consequence a National Population Policy was developed and approved by the Cabinet in the same year. The policy is well written, it presents a clear rationale for such a programme in unequivocal terms, and it establishes, on paper at least, an elaborate institutional machinery and structure for the implementation of the policy.

The policy can be faulted on three major grounds. Firstly, it does not specify any demographic or other numerical targets against which the programme could be monitored. Secondly, it is rather short on explicit multi-sectoral strategies e.g. education policy, employment policy, MCH/FP policy. Thirdly, the policy is assigned for implementation to the MOHMS, clearly identifying population problems as health and not comprehensive development planning issues.

The institutional bodies - the National Population Policy Council (NPPC), the Technical Advisory Unit (TAU), and the Provincial-level Population Policy Implementing and Evaluation Committees (to be chaired by the Head of Medical Services in each province)-were far too large and health-oriented. For example, the NPPC was to consist of all Permanent Secretaries of Government Ministries (about 20), plus over 40 co-opted members, ranging from representatives of NGOs, the Commissioners of Police, Lands and Labour and Provincial Secretaries and all Under Secretaries. The Chairman of the Council was designated to be the Permanent Secretary of the MOHMS. As a result, the Council has never met in six years!

The Technical Advisory Unit was to be responsible for integrating8 population issues in various line Ministries and organisations and would advise the NPPC; it would oversee the implementation and monitor and evaluate the impact of the policy; and it would undertake training, research and materials development activities. A small permanent secretariat was envisaged and a new post was to be created, designated as "Senior Administrative Officer - Population Planning and Coordination". This officer was to be placed under the supervision of the Under Secretary/Health Improvement, again in the MOHMS. The TAU was to be composed of all Under Secretaries (perhaps over 20), at least 15 other Ministerial officers, all Chief Medical Officers from the Provinces and 10 NGO representatives. Again, the TAU has never met!

The Implementing and Evaluation Committee at the Provincial level had a multi-sectoral membership from Provincial Ministries, churches and NGOs. It was to be chaired by the Head of Health and Medical Services in the Provinces. The Committee's main functions at the level of each Province were:

  1. to plan and integrate population and developmental issues in the various 5 year plans for social and economic development;

  2. to oversee the implementation of the Population Policy of the Solomon Islands;

  3. to continuously monitor and evaluate the impact of the Population Policy with regards the attainment of its objectives;

  4. to undertake related training, research and maternal development activities;

  5. to identify, recommend and implement ways for closer cooperation and collaboration between the various provincial ministries and organisations;

  6. to increase the national campaign on Family Planning;

  7. to closely monitor, assess and evaluate programme activities on Family Health, particularly Maternal Child Health, Family Planning and Population Education;

  8. to refer or recommend matters over to any of the other three committees; i.e. MHMS FPMEC, TAU and the NPPC for deliberations at their respective levels if so required.
Finally, the Family Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (FPMEC) was designated as an intersectoral action committee consisting of Ministries and organisations mostly involved in family planning. Under the Chair of the Under Secretary/Health Improvement, MOHMS, at least 16 other members were to be appointed to the FPMEC whose functions were:

  1. to oversee the implementation of the Policy;
  2. to design, produce, pretest and disseminate teaching and educational materials on population issues through the Health Education Division of MOHMS;
  3. to consider producing special Family Planning or other relevant programmes on video tapes locally to be used for teaching and awareness issues;
  4. to identify, recommend and implement ways for closer cooperation and collaboration between SIPPA, Health Education Division, MCH and Family Planning Division of MOHMS, the "O" Clinic and the provinces to provide the basis of a coordinated network of family planning service providers for counselling and educational services;
  5. to increase the campaign on Family Planning;
  6. to travel to the provinces regularly to assist in the implementation and evaluation of programme activities;
  7. to closely monitor, assess and evaluate the programme activities on Maternal Child Health, Family Planning and population issues in the country.
  8. to refer or recommend matters over to the Technical Advisory Unit or the National Population Policy Council if it warrants deliberations at a higher multi-sectoral level (Solomon Islands, 1988).
The structure of the implementation and coordination system was elaborately portrayed in an Annex to the policy, which is reproduced below as Figure 1.

In such a relatively small (but large by Pacific standards!) country, with undoubtedly severe population - related problems, one is left to question the need for such an elaborate institutional implementation and monitoring structure, particularly when the policy and the implementation strategy were so geared to health and MCH/FP matters. Evidently, population was, and still is to some extent, viewed as an issue for MCH/FP practitioners, and the larger population-development scenario was overlooked. Without adequate provision for funding, without quantitative TFR and CPR targets, and without realisable targets for the other social sectors to support the FP programme, the policy was doomed to be unimplementable from the beginning. Just as severe an impediment was the lack of political will, to which the Government of the day paid only lip-service. The Churches also, including the Catholic Church with over 20% of the population as members, were lukewarm.


A New Beginning for Population Policy in The Solomon Islands

In the years subsequent to the policy the demographic and economic situation in the country has deteriorated, and concern for environmental deterioration has increased9. In the meantime, a new coalition Government has come to power with a very narrow majority (of one member) in the National Parliament. The new Prime Minister has declared 1995 to be National Population Year and UNFPA has been requested to design a National Population Programme of Assistance10. There seems to be much greater political commitment to initiate population activities. But where and how do we begin anew?

The author undertook a recent (and first) mission to the country with the objective of assisting a national committee to organise the new initiative, which is to be launched with a National Population Awareness Raising Workshop to be held in mid-November 1994. He met with a wide circle of Ministerial and NGO officials and concluded that, while the road ahead is likely to be turbulent, there is enough concern in both political, administration and NGO circles to warrant greater UNFPA support. The new programme will be broader based with the Ministry of Development Planning taking overall coordinating responsibility from the MOHMS. A Population Unit is to be established and the sole incumbent Population Planner, who is young and inexperienced, transferring from Health to Planning. Clearly, there will be immense scope to initiate a new project to support an expanded Population Unit to undertake activities relating to "population integration".

In collaboration with Government officials the programme of the Awareness Raising seminar was finalised during the mission (see Appendix). The UNFPA CST-Suva advisers will attend the Honiara workshop, serving as key resource persons, together with officials from UNFPA. It is expected that the CST, after consultations with key personnel from Government and NGOs, will construct a UNFPA programme of assistance for the Solomon Islands in the days following the Seminar. The shape of the revised Population and Development Policy is expected to emerge from the Workshop together with a simplified institutional structure for coordinating the implementation and monitoring of the policy.

The challenge ahead is enormous and exciting. Resources are not readily available as the Government embarks on a Structural Adjustment Programme in collaboration with the IMF and public sector retrenchment is planned. Human resources, in the form of experienced economists, demographers and other specialists in population areas, are conspicuously lacking. Very few socio-economic and demographic surveys have been undertaken and most of the relevant data are derived from the 1986 Census of Population. Service statistics are deficient such that it is impossible to "guesstimate" the current CPR.

The task for the UNFPA CST will be to diagnose the situation, largely on the basis of background reading and discussions during the forthcoming Seminar, and to construct an interdisciplinary, multisectoral national programme of assistance to address the burgeoning population -related problems in the country. This will also entail assistance in revising the Population Policy. Once integrated projects are in place, all manner of financial and technical support will be required for the foreseeable future from the UNFPA.

It will not be an easy path to tread, but this case study of the Solomon Islands is illustrative of the kinds of problems encountered in the Pacific in erecting a viable comprehensive policy response to a diverse set of population-related problems. After supporting sectoral projects are in place, frequent technical advisory missions will be required by CST Advisers to the country to ensure that work plans are being implemented on schedule and the skills of national staff are upgraded. Since the CST covers a very diverse set of countries, extending over an enormous geographical area, the anticipated demand for their services will be heavy.

7. CONCLUSIONS

From the above discussion it is apparent that UNFPA support to population policy formulation and implementation in the Pacific Region, including the process of integrating demographic issues into development planning, will need to take a long-term view of national needs and donor commitments. Ironically, some of the least developed and poorer countries - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu - have the greatest development potential at the same time as confronting the most severe population-related problems. Some of the smaller countries - Tokelau, Niue, Tuvalu, Kiribati - have extremely limited development potential but retain their own unique brand of problems whose sources are often demographically based. They, too, will remain dependent on UNFPA to deal with these more specialised issues.

UNFPA assistance needs to be prioritised in support of implementing tailor-made, country specific population and development policies. Country prioritisation also needs to be redefined for the Pacific region. UNFPA CST support will be required over the longer term in the areas of:

The small size of many of the PICs, their relative geographic isolation, their deficient data and knowledge bases for population-development integration, and the very small number of technically skilled national officials in the Government planning machinery, who are responsible for overall planning and policy implementation, including population policy, means that UNFPA programme support and CST technical assistance will be necessary in the Pacific for the foreseeable future. The capacity for national project execution remains limited, yet most specialized agency representation is in Suva, often a very long way from the target countries. The size of these countries often does not warrant the expense of placing a full-time international expert in a project; yet CST Advisers can hardly be expected to undertake more than two annual missions to any particular country. Yet such infrequent technical backstopping missions have severe limitations. In this case, how can population policy implementation be closely monitored and the technical skills of population integration be imparted in a consistent fashion?

Evidently, the Pacific region presents its own peculiar set of problems for population policy-development practitioners, many of which have yet to be resolved. Innovative approaches are required to initiate and promote the implementation of population and development policies and programmes in these unique circumstances. Perhaps it is time for UNFPA to sponsor a follow up PRSD exercise in the Pacific to document the many lessons which have been learned in the period following the previous report of 1991.

REFERENCES

Bertram, G. (1986), "'Sustainable Development' in Pacific Micro-economies", World Development, Vol. 14, No. 7.

Bertram, G. (1993), "Sustainability, Aid, and Material Welfare in Small South Pacific Island Economies, 1900-90", World Development, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Cole, R. V. (1993), "Economic Development in the South Pacific: Promoting the Private Sector", World Development, Vol. 21, No. 2.

Papua New Guinea (1991), An Integrated National Population Policy for Progress and Development, Department of Finance and Planning.

Population Reference Bureau (1994), World Population Data Sheet, Washington D.C.

Solomon Islands (1988), Solomon Islands Population Policy, Ministry of Health and Medical Services.

South Pacific Commission (1994), Pacific Islands Population Update, Noumea, New Caledonia.

Streeten, P. (1993), "The Special Problems of Small Countries", World Development, Vol. 21, No.2

UNDP (1994), Pacific Human Development Report: Putting People First, UNDP Suva.

UNFPA (1991), Programme Review and Strategy Development: The South Pacific, New York

UNFPA, Country Support Team (1993), "Regional Mobilisation in Population and Development: A South Pacific Agenda", Discussion Paper No. 1.

UNFPA, Country Support Team (1993), Project SOI/92/P01: Mission Report No. 19

World Bank (1993), Pacific Island Economies: Towards Efficient and Sustainable Growth, Vol. 5, Solomon Islands - Country Economic Memorandum, Washington D.C.

APPENDIX: SOLOMON ISLANDS

NATIONAL POPULATION AWARENESS - RAISING SEMINAR FOR POLITICAL LEADERS

Participants:

All members of the Solomon Islands Parliament

Objectives:
  1. To raise awareness among the political leadership of the current and prospective population situation in the Solomon Islands.
  2. To gain endorsement of the new initiative to implement a Population and Development Policy in the Solomon Islands.
Date: Friday 11 November 1994

Venue: Forum Fisheries Agency Conference Room

Programme:

12.30 - 13.30 Official Opening and Lunch

13.30 - 14.15 Population Growth and Prospects for Development in the Solomon Islands (A. Namokari and W House)

14.15 - 14.30 Questions

14.30 - 15.00 Summary of Recommendations of the Technical Population and Development Seminar for Officials (Dr J Pikacha)

15.00 - 15.15 Coffee/Tea

15.15 - 16.00 New Directions for Population Policy in the Solomon Islands (Dr E Nukuro)

16.00 - 16.30 Discussion involving all UNFPA CST Advisers

16.30 - 17.00 Recommendations and Endorsements

17.00 Closing Ceremony

NATIONAL POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR
- SOLOMON ISLANDS -

Participants: Multisectoral representation from Ministries and Non Government Organisations.

Objectives:

  1. To raise awareness among planners and policy makers on the interrelationships between population growth and national socio-economic development;

  2. To discuss progress made in implementing the Population Policy and Programmes;

  3. To redefine the nature and contents of the National Population Programme for the remainder of the 20th Century and beyond and to help to identify specific population - related projects which can be funded by donors, including UNFPA.
Dates: 9 - 11 November 1994

Venue: Forum Fisheries Agency Conference Room

Programme:

Wednesday 9 November 1994

Session One: An Overview of Major Issues

8.45 - 9.15 Official Opening

9.15 - 9.45 Coffee/Tea

9.45 - 10.15 An Overview of the Population Situation in the Solomon Islands (A. Namokari).

10.15 - 11.00 RAPID - Solomons (Resources for the Awareness of Population Impacts on Development) (W House).

11.00 - 11.30 Questions

11.30 - 12.10 Data Needs and Research Gaps for Population and Development Planning (R. Tovutovu, Statistics Unit, Ministry of Finance).

12.10 - 12.30 Questions

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

Session Two: Population Growth and Sectoral Implications

13.30 - 14.00 Population Growth and the Macro-Economy (G. Kiriau - Ministry of Development Planning).

14.00 - 14.15 Questions

14.00 - 14.30 Population Dynamics and the Health Sector (Dr J Rodgers/Dr J Pikacha - Ministry of Health)

14.30 - 14.45 Questions

14.45 - 15.00 Coffee/Tea

15.00 - 15.30 The Situation of

15.30 - 15.45 Questions

15.45 - 17.00 Discussion Groups with UNFPA CST Advisers serving as resource persons

  1. Macro-Economy
  2. Health
  3. Youth and Women
Thursday 10 November 1994

Session Three: Sectoral Implications (continued)

8.00 - 8.30 Population Growth and Education Planning (Mr D. Sikua, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education)

8.30 - 8.45 Questions

8.45 - 9.15 Population Growth, Labour Market Implications and Vocational Training (Mr D. Sande, Ministry of Development Planning).

9.15 - 9.30 Questions

9.30 - 9.45 Coffee/Tea

9.45 - 10.15 Population Growth and Agricultural Development (Mr Ezekeil Walaodo, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries)

10.15 - 10.30 Questions

10.30 - 11.00 Population Growth and the Environment (M. Biliki, Ministry of Forestry, Environment and Conservation).

11.00 - 11.15 Questions

11.15 - 12.30 Discussion Groups with UNFPA CST Advisers serving as resource persons

12.30 - 13.30 Lunch

Session Four: Lessons for Population Policy Revision

13.30 - 15.30 Reports of Discussion Groups (1) - (7) and Recommendations for Policy

15.30 - 15.45 Coffee/Tea

15.45 - 16.15 Population Policy in the Solomon Islands: Lessons from the Past and Directions for the Future (Dr E Nukuro - Ministry of Health and Medical Services)

16.15 - 17.00 Questions

Friday 11 November 1994

Session Five: Strategies for Implementing the Population and Development Policy

8.30 - 9.45 Panel Discussion: