Avoiding A Pacific Lost Decade: Financing The Pacific’s Covid-19 Recovery

Key points

• The Pacific faces a potential ‘lost decade' owing to the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and an inability to finance the scale of government largesse needed to limit the damage.
• A multi-year ‘recovery package’ of at least US$3.5 billion (A$5.0 billion) is needed for the Pacific to fully recover from the pandemic. This should be funded by the region’s official development partners.
• Australia should establish a US$1.4 billion (A$2 billion) COVID-19 Pacific recovery loan facility, and advocate for other parts of the international community to follow its lead in contributing to the Pacific’s economic recovery. Once Australia has stepped up its own Pacific recovery financing contribution, it will be in a much stronger position to call on other development partners to do the same.

The Lowy Report - Pacific Economic Recovery is by by Roland Rajah, Director of International Economy at Lowy Institute, and Alexandre Dayant, Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at Lowy Institute. It can be read here. 

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