11 April 2025 Facing reduced foreign aid, Pacific nations embrace traditional practices to build climate resilience

With policies like Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ being implemented, the world political climate has suddenly changed. Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki Lincoln University Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management Dr Suli Vunibola discusses the urgent need for Pacific and Global South communities to embrace Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and practices to build climate resilience in the face of a reduction in foreign aid. 

Having recently commenced at Lincoln University, Dr Vunibola has conducted research into the use of TEK in Pacific communities to build climate crisis and natural disaster resilience through University of Canterbury’s MacMillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies. He is excited to now be at Lincoln University, with the aim to build research collaborations on Pacific projects as he sees the University as playing an important role in enhancing Pacific research and course content. 

A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) confirmed that foreign aid spending reached a record high of $223 billion in 2023.¹ In 2024 though, eight Global North wealthy countries announced a cut to Official Development Assistance of around $17.2 billion over five years. This figure did not include President Donald Trump’s stance on funding, including USAID.²  

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the Pacific Ocean Climate Crisis Assessment³ report highlighted the experiences of Pacific communities emphasising Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are implementing local strategies to combat the climate crisis.⁴ This is positive according to Dr Vunibola who is calling on revitalising resilience strategies rooted in Indigenous innovation systems and TEK.

“We’re starting to think about what development in the Pacific should look like with reduced foreign development aid. SIDS need to realise what types of traditional systems they need to foster to become more self-sufficient. Foreign aid received in the future needs to support this change in focus. 

“From a community perspective, foreign aid and state investment should target simple technologies that support everyday life, sustainable community production like food processing technologies and encourage greater access to green power generation. These build capacities that communities can benefit from in the long term.”  

Dr Vunibola shares that SIDS and other Global South countries have long relied on externally funded projects to support local livelihoods. So, a reduction in development aid will have far-reaching consequences. 

“If I look back at my childhood in Fjji, we relied on receiving aid after major natural disasters. Boats delivering aid would arrive and we were conditioned to this. But by doing so, we weren’t practising being self-sufficient through TEK.”

With this reliance has come a financial cost. Despite climate finance being mainstreamed into global financial structures, through institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 72% of these funds are loans. These loans often fail to address local priorities, instead ending up in the hands of private contractors from the Global North tasked with building climate-resilient infrastructure.⁵ As a result, Global South countries remain in debt, while extreme weather events are projected to cost these nations nearly $1 trillion annually by 2030.⁶ 

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of the Pacific Islands’ economy says Dr Vunibola, with thousands losing jobs in the hospitality due to border closures. The economic impact was devastating for countries like Vanuatu, Fiji, and the Cook Islands, where tourism contributes between 20% and 70% of GDP.⁷ At the same time, foreign experts, consultants, and aid workers returned to their home countries, leaving Pacific nations to fend for themselves. 

“In response, Samoa and Fiji, for instance, relied upon concepts like Tagi I lima (self-reliance) and vakacokotaki, solesolevaki (collective support) to recover. Traditional practices passed through generations, foster self-sufficiency, resilience and collective wellbeing. Pacific communities living in villages have access to customary land and its resources which allows people to care for others, implement communal labour and share responsibilities.

“During lockdown, people tended to garden more and eat locally, leading to a revival and reliance on traditional foods such as breadfruit, sweet potatoes, taro, fermented coconut meals and processed vegetable oils. By doing so, villages ensured food security and self-sufficiency during difficult times.”

Dr Vunibola says the challenges for Pacific and Global South communities lie in re-educating people to move away from a reliance on external help.

“The most urgent priority I see for SIDS and Pacific nations is to rediscover climate resilience. Any development initiatives funded by the United Nations, NGOs or intergovernmental support must be practical and collaborative, delivering solutions grounded in TEK. Here at Lincoln University, I want to advance research that focuses on the nexus between science and TEK. This will enable communities to utilise their existing knowledge of the environment to build resilient, self-sufficient and sustainable communities.” 

References

1. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/jan/23/global-development-economics-donor-spending-refugee-oecd-world-bank-peak-aid
2. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/donald-trump-day-one-foreign-policy-changes-inauguration-executive-orders
3. https://www.usp.ac.fj/news/pocca-assessment-report-launched-at-cop29-media-briefing/
4. https://theconversation.com/cop29-climate-finance-for-the-pacific-is-mostly-loans-saddling-small-island-nations-with-more-debt-243675
5. https://vimeo.com/1028292496/17be3787f7
6. https://odi.org/en/publications/calculating-economic-loss-and-damage-in-sids/
7. https://theconversation.com/traditional-skills-help-people-on-the-tourism-deprived-pacific-islands-survive-the-pandemic-148987