Migration, rural development and policy formation in the south Pacific

Abstract

Migration in the South Pacific region has become increasingly complex in recent years but can be characterised by growing population concentrations in towns, and other favoured locations, within the region and in urban centres in the metropolitan countries fringing the region. Migration has taken place principally for economic reasons, although social influences are also always important, as a response to real and perceived spatial inequalities in socio-economic opportunities. Consequently migrants tend to come from relatively poor rural areas although the migrants themselves may not be the poorest people in those areas; often it is the more educated who migrate, hence migration can be seen as a skill or brain drain. Migration from rural areas has tended to result in falling agricultural production (if not necessarily productivity) and hence less marketable surplus and more food imports, alongside growing urban unemployment, the emergence of urban elites and urban bias in national policy formation, although migration also has positive features that are essential to national development. Policies aimed at minimising migration and generating rural development must therefore emphasise the redistribution of social and economic opportunities. Although most development plans in the region say little about population distribution a number of mainly larger countries have emphasised policies relating to decentralisation and growth centres, whilst other countries, including Kiribati, French Polynesia and Papua New Guinea, have considered specific policies to minimise migration and overrapid urbanisation. The operation of these policies, and others outside the region, indicates that successful policy formation must be directed to the causes and not the symptoms of migration, which in the South Pacific region usually demands an emphasis on integrated rural development, not only to minimise migration but to generate increased agricultural production and satisfy the basic needs of the poor. Challenging universal and persistent population trends in countries with few natural resources and limited economic growth will remain extremely difficult.