Rioting and looting have returned to Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, nearly three years after Australian-led forces intervened to restore law and order.
Street protests against newly elected Prime Minister Snyder Rini are the tip of an iceberg of popular frustration and resentment that threatens to sink the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. Instead of heading toward autonomy and lasting peace, the Solomons risks descending into a fresh cycle of dependency and civil strife.
Gangs of youths are throwing rocks at politicians, surrounding parliament and burning down Chinese-owned businesses because nothing is being done to address the root causes of the ethnic violence and civil unrest that led to the 2003 intervention in the first place.
Over the past 30 years, the population has grown at a reputed 3.9 per cent – one of the highest rates in the world – while economic growth has been negligible. Per capita income has been falling and living standards have stagnated.
Unless this fundamental imbalance between population and economic growth is addressed, the gap between the elites and ordinary people will continue to grow – and so too will civil and political unrest.
Out of a population of 550,000, about 80,000 Solomon Islanders are unemployed or underemployed. An additional 16,000 young people enter the labour force each year, but there are few, if any, jobs for them to fill.
They can only sit around and watch as their politicians grow fat on aid and resource revenues while Chinese traders take over corner stores and local businesses. No wonder their resentment and frustration erupt into violence.
The Solomons is not lacking in resources. On the contrary, it is rich in agricultural land, minerals, timber and fish. Since independence it has earned more than $US2 billion ($2.69 billion) from timber and fish and received about $US1.6 billion in aid (in 1998 dollars). This windfall income, however, has flowed to elites in the capital, funding overblown government and encouraging waste and corruption. It has rarely reached the countryside where most people live.
Centred on the capital, RAMSI has compounded this division between town and country, and between urban elites and subsistence farmers, by putting the political cart before the economic horse. This critical failing is not widely understood among policymakers or commentators who – until recently – have hailed the RAMSI intervention a success. Even an editorial in this newspaper in the lead-up to last week’s election in the Solomons celebrated RAMSI’s success (see Cut & Paste on the opposite page).
But economies based on foreign aid and natural resources do not lead to the broad-based development needed to provide incomes and jobs to growing populations so that living standards rise. This policy mantra should be on the lips of every official involved in formulating and implementing Australia’s policies in the Pacific.
RAMSI has focused on necessary but not sufficient tasks such as rebuilding the public service and strengthening electoral and parliamentary process, which benefits the good-governance consultants and aid staff who crowd Honiara.
Economic measures aimed at stabilising the budget and improving financial management have brought inflation under control and growth rates back into (illusory) positive territory as aid flows to politicians and bureaucrats. But the majority of Solomon Islanders are barely better off than they were during the country’s precipitous decline.
While the restoration of law and order in a failing state is a crucial first step, stabilisation is not recovery. Only if security provides the foundation for economic reform – starting with private property rights in land and going on to changes throughout the economy to create labour-intensive employment – will there be lasting progress.
RAMSI was the first whole-of-government mission attempted by the Australian Government, involving not only the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Defence Forces but also AusAID, Treasury, the Finance department and many other officials.
Unfortunately, it demonstrates that Canberra has a bureaucratic focus that has failed to revive and stimulate the Solomons’ economy.
Australian officials went into the Solomons believing that it was not part of the mission to address local issues such as land ownership, the cause of the ethnic divisions that nearly led to civil war. But neither is it in the interests of political elites. After all, it threatens the power of big men in the countryside upon whose support they depend. If Australia does not lead the debate on such issues, they will never be addressed. At present, there is no indication from Canberra of a policy rethink along these lines.
An intervention such as RAMSI without an economic roadmap for real and sustained growth had moral hazard written all over it.
Stabilising law and order has been in the interests of the political elites, but any step to address corruption and introduce economic reform gets blocked because it threatens their privileges and interests. Last year’s constitutional challenges to RAMSI’s presence and protests over infringements of sovereignty merely prove the old dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Moreover, the RAMSI mission has a responsibility to Australian taxpayers to ensure that their money is being spent on fixing the causes of the Solomons conflict rather than treating the symptoms.
Instead, RAMSI has fed into cargo-cult expectations that whenever there is trouble, Australia will charge in and write a blank cheque to put things right. Calls from ordinary Solomon Islanders for RAMSI to stay longer and to do more are countered by charges of neo-colonialism from Solomon elites. Australia runs a real risk of getting bogged down as a de facto government that fails its job.
RAMSI was an opportunity for the Australian Government to address the causes of the Solomons’ descent into chaos – that is, the 30 years of stagnation and decline that has seen the population grow ahead of the economy. This pattern is being repeated throughout the region. Australia’s credibility in the Pacific is on the line. Can it rescue the Solomons’ economy to make good governance a real possibility?
Susan Windybank is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
Home > Commentary > Opinion > This mission had moral hazard written all over it
This mission had moral hazard written all over it
Rioting and looting have returned to Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, nearly three years after Australian-led forces intervened to restore law and order.
Street protests against newly elected Prime Minister Snyder Rini are the tip of an iceberg of popular frustration and resentment that threatens to sink the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. Instead of heading toward autonomy and lasting peace, the Solomons risks descending into a fresh cycle of dependency and civil strife.
Gangs of youths are throwing rocks at politicians, surrounding parliament and burning down Chinese-owned businesses because nothing is being done to address the root causes of the ethnic violence and civil unrest that led to the 2003 intervention in the first place.
Over the past 30 years, the population has grown at a reputed 3.9 per cent – one of the highest rates in the world – while economic growth has been negligible. Per capita income has been falling and living standards have stagnated.
Unless this fundamental imbalance between population and economic growth is addressed, the gap between the elites and ordinary people will continue to grow – and so too will civil and political unrest.
Out of a population of 550,000, about 80,000 Solomon Islanders are unemployed or underemployed. An additional 16,000 young people enter the labour force each year, but there are few, if any, jobs for them to fill.
They can only sit around and watch as their politicians grow fat on aid and resource revenues while Chinese traders take over corner stores and local businesses. No wonder their resentment and frustration erupt into violence.
The Solomons is not lacking in resources. On the contrary, it is rich in agricultural land, minerals, timber and fish. Since independence it has earned more than $US2 billion ($2.69 billion) from timber and fish and received about $US1.6 billion in aid (in 1998 dollars). This windfall income, however, has flowed to elites in the capital, funding overblown government and encouraging waste and corruption. It has rarely reached the countryside where most people live.
Centred on the capital, RAMSI has compounded this division between town and country, and between urban elites and subsistence farmers, by putting the political cart before the economic horse. This critical failing is not widely understood among policymakers or commentators who – until recently – have hailed the RAMSI intervention a success. Even an editorial in this newspaper in the lead-up to last week’s election in the Solomons celebrated RAMSI’s success (see Cut & Paste on the opposite page).
But economies based on foreign aid and natural resources do not lead to the broad-based development needed to provide incomes and jobs to growing populations so that living standards rise. This policy mantra should be on the lips of every official involved in formulating and implementing Australia’s policies in the Pacific.
RAMSI has focused on necessary but not sufficient tasks such as rebuilding the public service and strengthening electoral and parliamentary process, which benefits the good-governance consultants and aid staff who crowd Honiara.
Economic measures aimed at stabilising the budget and improving financial management have brought inflation under control and growth rates back into (illusory) positive territory as aid flows to politicians and bureaucrats. But the majority of Solomon Islanders are barely better off than they were during the country’s precipitous decline.
While the restoration of law and order in a failing state is a crucial first step, stabilisation is not recovery. Only if security provides the foundation for economic reform – starting with private property rights in land and going on to changes throughout the economy to create labour-intensive employment – will there be lasting progress.
RAMSI was the first whole-of-government mission attempted by the Australian Government, involving not only the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Defence Forces but also AusAID, Treasury, the Finance department and many other officials.
Unfortunately, it demonstrates that Canberra has a bureaucratic focus that has failed to revive and stimulate the Solomons’ economy.
Australian officials went into the Solomons believing that it was not part of the mission to address local issues such as land ownership, the cause of the ethnic divisions that nearly led to civil war. But neither is it in the interests of political elites. After all, it threatens the power of big men in the countryside upon whose support they depend. If Australia does not lead the debate on such issues, they will never be addressed. At present, there is no indication from Canberra of a policy rethink along these lines.
An intervention such as RAMSI without an economic roadmap for real and sustained growth had moral hazard written all over it.
Stabilising law and order has been in the interests of the political elites, but any step to address corruption and introduce economic reform gets blocked because it threatens their privileges and interests. Last year’s constitutional challenges to RAMSI’s presence and protests over infringements of sovereignty merely prove the old dictum that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Moreover, the RAMSI mission has a responsibility to Australian taxpayers to ensure that their money is being spent on fixing the causes of the Solomons conflict rather than treating the symptoms.
Instead, RAMSI has fed into cargo-cult expectations that whenever there is trouble, Australia will charge in and write a blank cheque to put things right. Calls from ordinary Solomon Islanders for RAMSI to stay longer and to do more are countered by charges of neo-colonialism from Solomon elites. Australia runs a real risk of getting bogged down as a de facto government that fails its job.
RAMSI was an opportunity for the Australian Government to address the causes of the Solomons’ descent into chaos – that is, the 30 years of stagnation and decline that has seen the population grow ahead of the economy. This pattern is being repeated throughout the region. Australia’s credibility in the Pacific is on the line. Can it rescue the Solomons’ economy to make good governance a real possibility?
Susan Windybank is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
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