Governance in Vanuatu: in search of the Nakamal way

There has been much talk of governance in the South Pacific in the past few years. Indeed, it seems that governance has become the political and economic message of the late 1990s, much as ‘sustainable development’ was that of the early 1990s. The messengers are the premier international organisations such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund relayed in the South Pacific by prominent bilateral donors, such as Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. Although the message of governance is relevant globally, it has been essentially directed at the developing world. It is, as such, currently having an impact on the Pacific islands. Like many new and widespread concepts before it, governance will be absorbed and ‘recycled’ by Pacific island governments and administrations. It may prove to be only an empty, ‘flavour of the month’ (Williams and Young 1994) expression used by Pacific officials as and when deemed necessary to satisfy aid donors. In this case governance will have an effect only in the context of Pacific island countries’ relations with larger powers and will not provoke fundamental or far-reaching changes on how Pacific societies actually govern themselves. On the other hand, should the idea come to take on meaning to the people it could be of benefit to the Pacific island countries. For the latter to happen, governance will need to be transformed into an adapted-to-the-Pacific concept, and not remain a ‘message from the cold’. Indeed, for governance to become truly relevant to the Pacific, people in the region must create their own definition and understanding of the concept. The objective of this paper is therefore to try to understand what governance means or can potentially come to mean, in one South Pacific country, Vanuatu.AusAI