The purpose of this report is to update the assessment of development status and trends in the Pacific region. The sub-title, "Creating opportunities", refers to what poverty means in a practical sense in the countries in the region. It also emphasizes the critical link between effective policies and the availability of sound and timely social data.

Published for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

New policies are needed if the Pacific is to realise its potential as a peaceful, prosperous region, where the Pacific's citizens enjoy good standards of health and education, long lives and many opportunities; where Pacific economic growth is constantly improving, driven by environmentally sustainable service industries; where coups, civil conflict and the dangers of failed states have been relegated to the past; where the Pacific is integrated into the wider region, and is an influential voice in world affairs. Argues that Pacific countries including Australia, need to embrace regional integration to realise this vision. The book sets out a comprehensive plan for realising a Pacific regional community dedicated to promoting sustainable development, security, human rights, the rule of law and democracy.

Many less developed countries are expanding their tourism industries and these are seen to be crucial to their economic development. Yet such activities can also create social, cultural and environmental problems. This book provides a review of many of the key issues involved in tourism in developing countries and presents a range of case studies. These are interpreted from a perspective of the sociology and anthropology of development. Case study chapters are presented from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Oceania. The book provides essential reading for advanced students and researchers in tourism and development studies.

Since its origins in late eighteenth-century European thought, the idea of placing a regional frame around the Pacific islands has never been just an exercise in geographical mapping. This framing has always been a political exercise. Contending regional projects and visions have been part of a political struggle concerning how Pacific islanders should live their lives. Framing the Islands tells the story of this political struggle and its impact on the regional governance of key issues for the Pacific such as regional development, resource management, security, cultural identity, political agency, climate change and nuclear involvement. It tells this story in the context of a changing world order since the colonial period and of changing politics within the post-colonial states of the Pacific. Framing the Islands argues that Pacific regionalism has been politically significant for Pacific island states and societies. It demonstrates the power associated with the regional arena as a valued site for the negotiation of global ideas and processes around development, security and climate change. It also demonstrates the political significance associated with the role of Pacific regionalism as a diplomatic bloc in global affairs, and as a producer of powerful policy norms attached to funded programs. This study also challenges the expectation that Pacific regionalism largely serves hegemonic powers and that small islands states have little diplomatic agency in these contests. Pacific islanders have successfully promoted their own powerful normative framings of Oceania in the face of the attempted hegemonic impositions from outside the region; seen, for example, in the strong commitment to the ‘Blue Pacific continent’ framing as a guiding ideology for the policy work of the Pacific Islands Forum in the face of pressures to become part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

"The report describes the efforts of 144 countries and territories to meet their international commitments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor." ... Elaine L. Chao.