This is an edited summary of the panel discussion at the ICDP Dialogue on the Blue Economy held on 26 September 2024, featuring Salote Waqairatu-Waqainabete (Suva), James Kana (Honiara) and Josh Forde (Wellington).

Salote Waqairatu-Waqainabete, Managing Director of Landscaping Solutions and ICDP Hub Coordinator for Suva, Fiji

Opening the panel of Pacific contributors at the ICDP Dialogue ‘The Blue Economy: Challenges and Opportunities’, Salote Waqairatu-Waqainabete offered a case study of a landscaping business she launched with her husband in 2016. The company now employs five additional staff. As well as producing and selling their own produce and garden soil supplements, Landscape Solutions undertakes construction and maintenance projects and runs a plant nursery. Its garden health products include compost and mulches produced from green waste, reducing landfill.

The couple lacked business skills and experience when founding the company but were able to join an accelerator programme and access funds from a development bank. While many Fijian businesses suffered during COVID-19, Landscaping Solutions benefited from increased demand, as people spent more time gardening and rediscovered their need for green spaces.

The company had already developed a new product for launch as the pandemic struck, and the couple used their marketing and technical connections to boost demand. They are now looking into tourism opportunities and working with large retailers and hoteliers, although such contracts can create cashflow problems for SMEs if larger firms are slow to pay their bills. They also understand the importance of digital literacy beyond online marketing, but balancing business compliance, new technology and financial probity with traditional obligations and priorities remains an issue, as they feel obligated to meet local criteria of success as well as Western measures.

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James Kana, Managing Director of the Ueniusu’unu Agribusiness Group in Solomon Islands

James Kana spoke about his business, Ueniusu’unu Agribusiness Group, which began as a small firm servicing rural farmers who might otherwise have moved to urban centres for work, given the difficulties of accessing agricultural supplies and marketing their produce in towns. The company now links these small-scale farmers to wholesalers and retail markets and encourages them to adopt environmentally sustainable production methods while optimising the output of their land.

Mr Kana has also worked with the ICDP Hub in Honiara to develop the Less than Container Load (LCL) project to help small firms and farmers pool their exports of premium agricultural goods to foreign markets to reduce transport costs. Five containers of imports arrive in the Solomons for every container of goods which are exported, and LCL is developing a digital platform to help organise and aggregate small farmers’ produce to increase scale and balance this trade.

New ‘carbon mile’ standards require the tracking of emissions associated with goods transportation, and so standardising and improving the efficiency of the supply chains should have a positive environmental impact as well as reducing the costs of transporting agricultural produce from inland farms to the docks, and then on to foreign markets.

LCL continues to expand its network of contacts with entrepreneurs, donors, civil officials and other partners, and is looking for further opportunities with local government and international partners as well as the private sector.

The Blue Economy offers additional scope for growth, given Solomon Islands’ status as a large island state. The sheer size of the Pacific was once a barrier to trade, but now the resources in its vast expanse offer new economic opportunities. The Solomons can become a maritime hub, for example, connecting ocean transport and logistics.

Eighty per cent of the economic activity in Solomon Islands remains in the informal sector, but its government is looking to formalise more of these firms to include them in government functions and link them with development partners and support.

The Ueniusu’unu Agribusiness Group is also looking at opportunities within the ‘circular economy’ and the renewable energy sector and is partnering with an Israeli company to produce biogas from organic waste generated by farmers growing organic produce.

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Josh Forde, Director and Head of Business Development at Ackama, New Zealand

Josh Forde introduced his digital consultancy firm Ackama in New Zealand, which had operated in the Pacific for the last seven years. The company sees ample opportunities for its services in developing the region’s Blue Economy. Rather than focus on geopolitical and governance concerns, the company believes that recent investment in better broadband links across the Pacific will help businesses and communities connect with each other and take advantage of these new opportunities in agile ways more quickly than countries chained to legacy infrastructure.

The region’s lack of business investment capital will force firms to use digital technology in smarter ways, and Mr Forde hoped that his company would be able to focus on partnerships with private enterprise, as funding for development projects from philanthropic donors or governments tends to be time limited.

Many Pasifika people in New Zealand retain close links with other Pacific Island communities, but New Zealand must also look to broker long-term partnerships with the region to create sustainable, affordable solutions. Ackama is already working with James Kana’s LCL project in Solomon Islands and investing in relationships with other local consultants looking to use new technology and generate positive change.

Ackama recognises the importance of building long-term relationships with its new Pacific clients, in keeping with New Zealand’s well-respected business culture. It must understand the needs of their clients, rather than focus on short-term sales generated by traditional marketing. It is also sensitive to the diverse cultures and economic environment across the region, as well as its commonalities. Successful technology consultancy depends on developing trusted partnerships with local firms and communities, as well as helping Western aid programmes improve the outcomes of education, tourism and agricultural initiatives.

Western businesses tend to focus on economic transactions, which may then lead to lasting relationships, whereas traditional societies expect trusted relationships to be established first before transactions can be contemplated. This difference of approach can create tension when Western firms and traditional communities interact, given the pressure on Western firms to generate immediate returns from their efforts at relation building.

Western donors and businesses therefore need to adapt to the Pacific context when working in the region, rather than the other way round, as well as appreciating the factors of geographical size, isolation and vulnerability to natural disasters facing Pacific islanders.

COVID-19 interrupted Ackama’s visits to the region from New Zealand and Australia for a time, but the company’s regional business relationships were maintained through the ICDP network. Fijian tech firms are now expanding into New Zealand and Australian markets, and reciprocal partnerships across the region have increasing scope for success. Collaboration can prove more productive than competition, as new firms expand the size of the market rather than vie for the same slice of the pie.

Pacific nations may lack the resources to invest in artificial intelligence and its associated technology, but they can use these techniques to monitor and manage their resources, fisheries and agriculture in smarter, cheaper and more efficient ways by partnering with Australian and New Zealand technology firms.

The full report of the ICDP Dilaogue ‘The Blue Economy: Challenges and Opportunities’ is available here.