Pacific economies have limited capacity to absorb shocks such as the Iran war, leaving them at risk of a “lost decade” of development on top of earlier crises.

A growing share of regional support is shifting from grants to loans, led by Australia’s expanding infrastructure pipeline and the major multilateral banks. China, once the region’s largest lender, ...

Pacific governments have more than doubled social protection spending over the past decade, from 0.9% to 2.3% of gross national income. External financing has ...

Official development finance to the Pacific increased in 2024, ending three years of decline. The rise came predominantly from concessional loans, which offset falling year-on-year grants. Total ...

Loans from its mid-2010s lending boom are now entering acute repayment phases, leaving Tonga, Samoa, and Vanuatu with substantial debt obligations to Beijing. In 2024, Chinese aid spending in the ...

Pacific Island economies are among the world’s most energy insecure. Recent fuel-market volatility has underscored continued dependence on imported fossil ...

Aid to the Pacific is increasingly concentrated among a few major partners, with Australia by far the largest. The United States has cemented a long-term commitment to the three Compact states, ...

The India Chair produces independent research on India’s emergence as a global strategic actor. In a region marked by great power competition and a volatile order in transition, India’s choices on ...

For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic subsided, North Korea has sent a delegation led by Kim Song-nam, director of the international department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, to Southeast ...

Australians register historic levels of distrust and unease in 2026 Charles Lyons-Jones ...

When Papua New Guinea announced last week that Taiwan’s representative office would “no longer be recognised” (Opens in new window) within its jurisdiction, the reflex was to file the news under a ...

The Southeast Asia Influence Index maps the landscape of geopolitical influence in this crucial region. Building on an existing body of data-driven research by the Lowy Institute, this new project is ...