Trust Funds in the Pacific: Their Role and Future

Abstract

Development in the Pacific remains a great challenge. Despite receiving decades and billions of dollars worth of development assistance, including Asian Development Bank (ADB) disbursements worth well over US$1 billion,1 the 14 Pacific developing member countries (PDMCs) still struggle to reach even modest levels of growth. Though their development performances vary and a few have demonstrated fair progress, altogether the results are not impressive. This long-standing situation, the so-called Pacific Paradox, has led some of the region’s more prominent development partners to begin seriously questioning the very feasibility of achieving financial and economic selfreliance. Nevertheless, as the PDMCs and their development partners renew their commitments to improved aid effectiveness and to combating poverty, new approaches need to be identified and deployed. One promising mechanism that has slowly penetrated the development scene is trust funds