In the early 1990s, the World Bank raised concerns about the low growth rate in the Pacific Island countries compared to other small island developing states of the Caribbean and Indian oceans, where development was subject to the same sorts of constraints (small internal markets, narrow production bases, high unit costs of infrastructure, heavy dependence on external trade, vulnerability to external shocks and natural disasters and isolation from large high-income markets) while enjoying the advantages of high levels of basic subsistence, favourable climate and sustainable concessional aid flows and remittances (World Bank 1993).

The World Bank experts called this phenomenon ‘The Pacific Paradox’—simply an admission of their confusion. Indeed, the report went on to state that the Pacific Paradox did not yield to easy answers. It did, however, make suggestions on how the situation might be improved, pointing out that consideration should be given to ‘the blend of customary practices and modern systems [which] has both inhibited development and helped provide some stability and social safety nets’. The implication was that ‘culture’ and ‘customary practices’ were important only as inhibitors of development and as a conservative social force. They did, however, end up recommending that ‘the objective is not to impose some model derived elsewhere but to adopt new approaches’.

Since then, the growth rate in the Pacific has not shown any real improvement. The issue then for the Pacific island countries is whether or not there really is a ‘Pacific Paradox’. In my view, there is no ‘Pacific Paradox’. The paradox is solely in the eyes of the beholder who is blinkered against culture and sustainable development. It is not a reality.

A number of important questions were not raised such as: What is important to a Fijian, Solomon Islander, Tongan, Samoan and so on? Is it capital formation without other considerations or a balance of goods which are socially and culturally meaningful? What priority is given to meeting family and other social obligations? Is it wealth for the individual, or individual plus family, relatives and friends? What is wealth for anyway? Does it have the same meaning for a Pacific Islander as to a Westerner? Would a Tuvaluan, Ni Vanuatu or Ponapean accumulate wealth rather than help his family, relatives or neighbours?

For many experts the only remedy for the slow pace of agricultural development and therefore the growth in exports, is to change the land tenure system to allow for plantation-type agriculture. In many cases the theory may be correct, but in the Pacific island countries, one’s soul and one’s own identity is tied up with land and offshore resources. Do we then legislate for changing the basis of our destiny and identity? Or do we build on them? And if industrial agriculture and green revolution agriculture do not work too well in small island states, why not develop what is now called the Third Agricultural Revolution—the ‘Crop Diversification Revolution’—which has long been practised throughout the Pacific.

The ‘Pacific Paradox’ provides a telling lesson because it shows that culture is an important aspect of development and will affect development and whatever we do. If we do not take culture into account and understand the interplay between it and development, we cannot move as surely as we should. If we are to participate in the global society we can only do so if we are Tongans, Papua New Guineans, I Kiribati, Fijians, Niueans and Samoans who are modern and not as modern men who happen to live in the Pacific islands. The importance of the culture and sustainability issue is that it points up the fact that what we want is the modernisation of the faa-Samoa, faka-Tonga and so on—modernisation of the Pacific Way, and not Westernisation or Asianisation or globalisation. The ‘Pacific Paradox’ exists only because of the influence of the concept of Westernisation.