A blind old man had heard a lot about the coveted price of vanilla on the market, so he got his sons to plant vanilla for him too. Harvest time arrived; he dried his crop and travelled some 2 hours to reach the provincial center to sell his treasured commodity. Returned home late that aftern…

Frustrations mounting, but this is only the tip of the ice-berg. We have definitely not reached the bottom of the deep dark valley yet. This week discussions on radio have started venturing into the all-important direction we must now accept and deal with–Mental Health! COVID-19 has created …

For many years, China has been a major contributor to global development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Much of this Chinese South-South Cooperation (SSC) has flown under the radar of Western media and traditional aid discourse. Chinese aid, including its humanitarian assistan…

The phone rings. Newly-elected MP picks up the call. The caller asks, ‘have you been given a portfolio as we had instructed you?’ MP responds, ‘sorry brother, we’ve been left out as there needs to be fair sharing…’

It couldn’t have come at a worse time, with the Government in caretaker mode following a general election, and coronavirus the subject of nearly every other conversation. Category Five Tropical Cyclone Harold ground its way across central and northern parts of Vanuatu on Monday 6th April, ca…

We now have two Blocs camping in preparation for next Monday 20th April when a new Prime Minister, Speaker and others will be elected. Negotiators are turning hard on the political lobby wheels, while frustrations mount particularly among one-man-band type political ‘parties’ and independent…

The multiple disasters we’ve weathered this past week reconfirm Vanuatu’s status as ‘the world’s most at-risk country for natural disasters’, according to a UN University World Risk Index. We are powerless against these natural calamities.

1. In the past couple of years, we have heard about people committing suicide in Vanuatu. Some of them have been identified as students. What challenges do young people face in a school environment?

The need for government to give attention to the situation of seasonal workers has been highlighted in two earlier Devpolicy blogs. This blog focuses on the problems Approved Employers in the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP) are facing in coping with the current extraordinary situation of the…

In January 2020 it was reported that a woman had committed suicide in Teouma, just outside the capital of Port Vila, Vanuatu. This time the media coverage was brief and factual, unlike the media coverage of the school student who had committed suicide in Santo in October 2018. Since then, ma…

One would swiftly assume that this convoy of military vehicles is transporting soldiers to another bloody war, as is customary these days, in this age of conflict. Not this time. These are actually truckloads of coffins of corpses killed by Covid-19. In Italy, the death toll has surpassed 12…

Christians should be ‘anchors of stability’ during times of trouble. A world church leader shared this encouragement thought over the weekend amid the chaos, panic and stress currently affecting us from COVID-19.

From political victory to dead serious crisis management mode. Within 21 days from now a new government has to be formed. Whoever he is, the new prime minister’s first leadership test will be how he manages and steers this country through a biological threat, or an actual biological warfare …

It was an honour to sit in with a few of our former national leaders during this week’s VBTC-sponsored Public Forum Panel at the Chiefs’ Nakamal. The hot issue of discussion was ‘political instability’.