The operation has been screened for climate and disaster risks and has been found to be highly exposed while risks to the operation's activities are moderate. Climate change is profoundly impacting the health of Pacific Islanders, particularly the large portion of the population with...

Fiji has weathered a long history of economic shocks and, with a decade of political stability behind it, has ambitions to become a high-income country. Past policies have supported its transition to an upper middle-income country, driven by capital deepening, population growth and improvements...

This paper investigates the short- and medium-term economic impacts of natural disasters, focusing on Pacific Island Countries (PICs) and using global high-frequency nightlight data in addition to macroeconomic data. In this paper, we identify significant short-term effects on growth following...

Fiji faces significant challenges from sea-level rise (SLR), which could cause annual economic losses averaging 1.8% of GDP from 2020 to 2099. While widespread coastal protection measures limit damages, they are costly and may not yield significant net savings. Planned retreat can instead reduce...

Economic recovery has continued, driven mainly by tourism. Inflation decelerated sharply in 2024 as the impact of the 2023 VAT hike faded. The fiscal stance was tightened, but monetary and financial conditions remain highly accommodative. Progress has been made in enhancing the business...

We examine growth strategies for the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) focusing on the role of tourism and diversification. First, we quantify the contribution of tourism to growth using panel regressions and we compute how much additional tourism would be needed for PICs to sustain comparators'...

Farewell to Single-Use Plastics in the Pacific is a World Bank-led series of analytics aimed at informing national and regional decision-making, policy formulation, and investment requirements focused on decreasing plastic imports, consumption, and plastic waste, and, consequently, on reducing...

This work was conducted at the request of the Ministry of Finance, Strategic Planning, National Development and Statistics (MFSPNDS). MFSPNDS requested the World Bank's support to conduct a systematic review of the health sector, to take stock of its current performance in tackling the country's...

This paper examines the resilience of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Fiji against the economic impacts of major shocks including the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and climate-related hazards, using a survey of 2,400 MSMEs from early 2023. The analysis focuses on...

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face many economic challenges. Economic stimuli such as tourism expenditures, remittances, and hotel investment, can address some of these challenges. This research seeks to quantify and compare the economic effects of these three primary injections into a...

Economic output and livelihoods in Pacific Island economies (PIEs) rely greatly on ocean-related sectors and products, known as the "Blue Economy". Yet, marine ecosystems are under mounting pressure of climate change and human degradation, exposing PIEs to very large risks, while they have only...

The Fijian economy has recovered strongly from the pandemic. Real GDP rebounded by around 30 percent cumulatively in 2022-23, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Inflation has recently ticked up modestly largely due to a temporary effect of the hike in Value-Added Tax rates. Supported by the...

The Country Opinion Survey in Fiji assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Fiji perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and...

The departmental paper, "Rise of Digital Money: Implications for Pacific Island Countries," delves into the fast-evolving landscape of digital money in a diverse region of extremes in size, remoteness and dispersion, highlighting its significant macroeconomic and financial consequences. It...

This report presents the findings of the Vital Signs Profile (VSP) assessment conducted by the World Bank and the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative (PHCPI) in collaboration with Fiji's Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MHMS). The VSP provides an opportunity to assess the state of...

When parents migrate from home to another place and leave their children behind, it can have a large influence on their children. This study explores the relationship between parental migration and the learning outcomes of left-behind children aged 7-14 in Pacific Island economies, particularly...

Pacific developing member countries (DMCs) depend heavily on international tourism, which can promote merchandise exports by reducing trade costs. This paper empirically analyzes tourist inflows as a determinant of merchandise exports for Pacific DMCs by deploying a gravity model technique....

As a final act, families of the deceased strive to implement funeral rites that are befitting of their loved one. However, perceived obligatory adherence to an immutable culture, plus emulation, can compel families to carry out a costly funeral. Yet, no data exist on financing and expenditure of...

This note provides a deep dive into the quality of nighttime lights (NTL) data for Pacific Island Countries (PICs). It explores their potential to generate and complement regional socio-economic statistics. NTL data has been widely used as a proxy of economic activity. It has been used to both...

Climate change poses an existential threat to many islands in the Pacific. Small island states in the regionare increasingly vulnerable to extreme rainfall events, cyclones, changes in ocean circulation, and risingsea level. Climate data is a critical resource to help development actors prepare...

The systematic country diagnostic (SCD) covers a group of nine small Pacific Island countries (PIC-9) - Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The document updates the previous SCD, completed in 2016, and assesses the...