In this first scenario I will outline what could happen if Fiji governments continue to be indecisive in the face of the significant economic problems that are on the horizon. They are also the problems that will come into view if the Government is unwilling and unable to ensure that the money offered for the purposes of restructuring the sugar industry and providing alternative avenues of employment for sugar farmers who are disadvantaged by the restructure fails to ‘trickle-down’. With the sugar industry in decline and faced with, at best, a choice between significant restructure, the inclusion of new forms of production such as ethanol production, or closure, and a garment industry that is already well in decline, the Fiji Government and the people of Fiji obviously cannot afford anything other than prompt, decisive, effective and efficient action. ^[28]

In spite of the loan that has been approved by the ADB, a report published by the bank notes that ‘accessible alternative occupations’ for those who leave sugar leases that are no longer viable and who have been displaced by shrinking employment opportunities in sugar-related occupations are likely to be difficult to obtain. It is already clear that ‘formal employment will not keep pace with population drift to urban areas’. This will mean that the rural-to-urban drift will accelerate the expansion of informal settlement in Suva and there will be an increased reliance on informal avenues for employment. ^[29] Already, anecdotal evidence suggests that the profile of the residents of the Suva-Nausori corridor has changed. It has been commonly agreed that residents in this corridor were once predominantly indigenous Fijians. Today, it is said that almost half are Indo-Fijians. The deleterious effect on the sugar industry of the end of a significant number of sugar-farm leases and the reduced productivity of the continuing leases, coupled with an attendant reduction in confidence in the industry, is a sensible and reasonable way to account for this change.

The problems associated with urbanisation in Pacific Island countries are already well documented. They are depicted as ‘numerous and serious’. Lack of sufficient employment opportunities (particularly in the more secure and predictable formal sector) in peri-urban areas of spontaneous urban settlement and the downward pressure on wages in the formal and informal sectors created by competition for work, are already cause for concern among planners and academic commentators. They also note the obvious pressure on already hard-pressed services such as a reliable water supply (now often having to be accommodated in Suva’s outer suburban areas by the use of a 44-gallon drum covered by a flap of plastic and left on the roadside to be filled from a water truck) and waste disposal (with a significant portion finding its way into waterways and lagoons). Indeed, the overall profile of urban poverty in Fiji is becoming a matter of acute concern. ADB policy-makers have estimated that for the period 2002–03 urban poverty in Fiji rose to the point where it included some 30 to 40 per cent of urban residents. ^[30] (Just a little more than five years earlier, in 1997, a Government/UNDP report found that in Fiji as a whole 25 per cent of people were living below the poverty line, with a further 25 per cent surviving just above this line). It has also been recognised that as many as 83 per cent of those in poverty are employed. They are the working poor, and research has shown that many of these working poor are already living in informal urban settlements.^[31]

Urban commentators have been keen to point out that in the context of today’s global economy, there are cities that gain and cities that lose. The cities that gain are obviously those favoured by substantial international investment. Some cities have become ‘mega’ or ‘world’ cities. They include New York, London and Shanghai and maybe even Sydney. They are cities that face outward, embracing the world marketplace. However, other cities have suffered as the manufacturing base they grew on has been shipped offshore. These cities include Detroit and Pittsburgh, Sheffield and Liverpool, Dresden and Leipzig. (In Australia they are rust-belt cities such as Geelong, Newcastle and Wollongong.) In order to again flourish, these cities have had to reinvent themselves. Dresden has wanted to become a new centre for micro-electronics in Germany, the English city of Liverpool has presented itself as a cultural centre and the Australian cities of Geelong, Newcastle and Wollongong have been keen to foster their image as university cities. ^[32] However, there are obviously other types of cities. They are not losing or in danger of losing their residents and they have not been left behind and forced to retool and reorient because the manufacturing base that gave rise to their very existence has moved offshore. These are developing- country cities that are growing due to rural push. And, in the case of Fiji, the likely outcome of a future considerable contraction in sugar production means that cities (particularly Suva) are likely to undergo substantial growth.^[33]

The changing spatial form of cities is reflecting the dynamics of globalisation and it is clear that Fiji’s cities have been and will continue to be affected by this dynamic. It is equally clear that it will be difficult for Suva to take advantage of advice that suggests that cities ‘lower down the [global] system’ will ‘have to find niches in the global marketplace in order to survive’. This advice is not appropriate. ^[34] Finding a market outlet (or niche) is obviously a good idea, but the city will survive and grow even without this market chance. Though Fiji’s second city of Lautoka can be twinned with the tourist entry town of Nadi to share the benefits that derive from tourism and so take advantage of a global market niche, Suva is not geographically well placed to take advantage of tourism. Suva is likely to survive as the country’s administrative centre and grow as a warehouse for those whose incomes have benefited from protective sugar and garment markets and pricing arrangements, and who are now to be left without a regular, formal income. ^[35]

While a number of First-World urban commentators either ignore the type of developing-country city I have outlined above (doing no more than express concern over cities where the population rises, but employment opportunities are barely increasing or static), others are busily identifying interesting possibilities for cities such as Suva. This latter group of commentators argues that we should stop deploring the growth of informal settlements, squatter towns and even slums. They argue that we should value measures such as ‘spontaneous housing’. They are keen to point out that there are benefits to be derived from ‘self-help’ housing and the growth in the informal economy that comes with significant levels of rural-to-urban drift. Indeed, this approach seems to be already having an effect. In their latest pronouncement on development in the Pacific region, those who set Australia’s aid goals have been arguing that self-help and self-employment must be encouraged. They have noted the benefit that would be gained from ‘removing regulatory barriers in the informal sector’ and have even noted that measures such as moving street-traders on because ‘local authorities decide to “clean up the town”’ (and quite often it is because they lack formal permission and business licences) are not sensible initiatives in the context of very high and still rising rates of urban unemployment. ^[36]

In the West, the process of increased industrialisation and urban growth usually accommodated the growing number of urban residents’ need for formal employment. The cities needed the workers, but this is an experience that is in stark contrast with that of most developing countries where there is insufficient formal employment to satisfy residents’ needs. ^[37] Commentators who are arguing for reassessment of Third World informal self-help communities and their employment patterns recognise that the informal economy, where those who come to town might well find work, has its faults. These have been extensively debated. They know that ‘the great mass of unskilled workers has encouraged the growth of “informal sectors” in every developing country’ (reflecting a lack of investment in human capital) and they are well aware that these workers are subject to insecure employment and are not protected by minimum wage provisions. They also lack access to welfare services, and health and safety provisions in the workplace are often ignored. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that many poor urban households derive their living from the informal sector. They and their families depend on it. It is also clear that this sector represents concrete action by the poor to provide employment and to service their own and others’ needs. ^[38]

Today a number of respected sources such as the ILO have not only recognised the importance and value of this sector, they have argued that it would derive considerable benefit from ‘state intervention in the areas of credit, technical support and infrastructure’. In concert with this advice, a number of Fiji-based academics have noted that most participants in their country’s informal sector depend on moneylenders and relatives to access finance. They estimate that these two sources account for 80 per cent of the finance used for investment in informal enterprises and that the interest charged by moneylenders is ‘quite high’. They estimate that it averages 34 per cent per annum. Moreover, the Fiji Government has already recognised the need to support small, often family-run and often informal-sector enterprises and now has legislation in place to promote small and micro-enterprises. As well, aid donors are well aware of the benefits to be gained from offering micro-financing to these enterprises (for example, the EU has already established an EU/ACP Microfinance Framework Program). It therefore seems that the considerable body of grant and aid funds from a range of other sources that are to be used for the declared purpose of helping to ‘develop alternative livelihoods for rural dwellers at risk in the restructure of the sugar industry’ should be extended to those who are or who will come to live in Suva. It will be sensible, indeed necessary, to extend the stated intention of ‘livelihood’ projects aimed at encouraging sugar farmers ‘to engage in off-farm livelihoods by promoting the development of small and micro-enterprises’ to urban areas and particularly to what will be a fast-growing informal sector. ^[39]

A further option with regard to addressing the needs of recently arrived rural-to-urban migrants begins with the observation that while developing-country governments have constructed public housing in answer to the demands of the poor, it is clear that their capacity to meet this housing demand is often woefully inadequate. In many cases even maintaining any existing stock of public housing is neglected, which might even worsen the plight of the poor. It is then no wonder that in a manner that parallels their advice in relation to the benefits that would derive from supporting the informal economy, some commentators have concluded that public housing has proved to be too costly for many developing-country governments and that this means that self-help shelter is the best realistically available option. They also note that spontaneous self-help shelters have an advantage over public housing because they are likely to be improved and upgraded over time. And, in most cases, self-built communities give rise to the spontaneous development of local religious-centred communities (churches, temples and mosques) and informal shops. These matters are clearly evident when viewing Suva’s dilapidated supply of public housing and its squatter settlements. The obvious conclusion is that government attention would be better directed towards providing support for settlement housing. It has been pointed out that developing-country governments could (and should) establish formal land lease arrangements that provide some security for self-help settlements (indeed, the Fiji Government has done this in the past) and that this innovation should be given preference ahead of continuing investment in what has often become substandard and inadequate public housing.

Many indigenous Fijian settlements in and around Fiji’s main cities are based on informal arrangements with formally recognised indigenous landowning groups. However, with increasing numbers of Indo-Fijian families likely to come to town as rural-to-urban migrants, these arrangements will be forgone. These migrants do not usually have connections that would encourage formal indigenous-Fijian landowners to informally sublease land to them. This leaves them relying on the use of public land, and experience to date demonstrates that settlement then might often take place on land situated alongside suburban waterways or under high-voltage electricity cables. More appropriate areas set aside to be formally leased to self-help families would obviously be a very useful government innovation in this context.

Those commentators who are urging that informal settlement should be reassessed also have a further point to make. It amounts to a sober caution. They note that we (scholars, policy-makers and journalists resident in developed and developing countries) have too often viewed self-help housing through a middle- class/permanent urban resident lens. We have therefore seen squatter settlements only as a source of increased social problems, as eyesores, a nursery for crime and violence, and an environmental hazard. These settlements are seen as a blot on the urban landscape rather than attempts by the poor to cater for themselves. However, even with the best intentions, one of the problems that it will be difficult to fund is the need for essential services, such as clean water, electricity and sewerage for self-help settlements.^[40] The latter situation is underlined in the case of Suva when it is remembered that there are squatter settlements that have been in existence for decades and that have had stable and continuous informal agreements with legally recognised landowners for this period of time and yet have not so far been able to raise the funds required to have electricity connected. The matter that all parties agree on is that ignoring the problems associated with informal urbanisation is most certainly ill-advised. ^[41]