ABSTRACT
Development aid has been a prominent feature of Pacific Island economies for the past fifty years, though there has been considerable spatial and temporal variation in how this aid unfolds across the region. This chapter analyses changes in aid flows in the region, noting diversity and dynamism in the sources of aid, its dispersal and its uses. The key international organisation for the definition of aid and collection of data about it is the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). There has been a major change in the composition of donors in the region in the past fifty years. Aside from the issues surrounding the inclusion or not of French Official Development Assistance (ODA) to its territories, the most notable feature is the major withdrawal of United Kingdom as a donor to the region – and its replacement, to a large degree, by Australia.
