Markets for Change Market Profiles

A snapshot of the Markets for Change project and the markets it works in across Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

As a group of small and geographically dispersed countries far from international markets, economic growth across the Pacific region is often uneven. While the World Bank considers Nauru and Palau to be upper middle income countries, the United Nations classifies Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tuvalu as “least developed countries” based on their low incomes, economic vulnerability and weak human resources. Pacific populations are mainly rural and rely largely on subsistence activities: around 84% of women and 71% of men are involved in the subsistence or informal economies, work for family or are self-employed, and are therefore classed as vulnerable workers. Many of these activities fall outside the formal economy and are therefore not represented through more traditional economic measures such as gross domestic product...