HUMAN DEVELOPMENT SITUATION : An Overview

1.0 Human Development Indicators

Solomon Islands ranks 105 in a list of 160 countries rated accordingly to the human development indicators of life expectancy, education and income (UNDP Human Development Report, 1992). While life expectancy has increased in recent years, literacy rate remains at 22%, the lowest in the Pacific region. Per capita income has decreased from US$430 (1988) to US$256 (1991); the average monthly earnings of the formal wage sector, which comprises 15-18% of the population, is SBD544, a figure inflated several times by expatriate earnings. The income of 85% of the population outside the formal economy is hard to determined, but a significant decrease in such income can be expected from the combined effects of price increases, trade imbalance and the 3.5% population growth rate.

Health and Nutrition

Communicable diseases, malnutrition and malaria continue to pose significant health and nutrition problems. Yaws, leprosy and tuberculosis have not been eradicated, while new non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are emerging. Malaria, at 400 cases per 1000, remains the most serious health problem.

Malnutrition affects a quarter of the child population below five years of age. Infant mortality rate is moderate at 42.9 deaths per 1000 live births, but there has been no downward trend for the last ten years.

While 62% have access to water, only 9% have access to safe sanitation.

Life expectancy at birth is 61.4 for females and 59.5 for males. The rate of survival for both sexes from 25-45 increased from 86% in 1976 to 93% in 1986. The overall improvement in life expectancy reflects improved standard of primary health care.

Education

Only around 500 primary schools serve Honiara and more than 5000 villages. Secondary schools are fewer in number. Primarily due to lack of facilities, there are around 6500 pushouts from the school system each year. Between 25-40% of school-aged children do not attend school. Most children in the rural areas manage to attend school by walking or taking the canoe through long learning materials and dilapidated schools without water or sanitary facilities are some of the problems affecting the school system.

Only 27% of children go to secondary school and a mere 1.4% complete six years of secondary school. There are fewer girls in both primary and secondary schools. Less than 1% of the adult population has been educated to degree or diploma level.

The young people have limited opportunities to work in the formal employment sector, which can generate only 500 jobs a year.

Food Security

While population has doubled over the last two decades, food production per capita has slipped by about 10% below levels achieved 20 years ago. Food production is now below the average for comparable lower income countries in Asia. Periodic food shortages reflected in the Honiara Retail Price Index may indicate stagnation of local food production.

Locally produced root crops are still the most important staples, but there is a steadily rising trend in rice consumption, an estimated 7 kg. per person per year in 1981 to 3.5 kg. per person per year in 1991. Rice imports mean a significant drain in foreign exchange. The value of such imports rose from SBD 1.1 M in 1980 to SBD 7.5 M in 1990. A recent increase in import tariffs and reduced income have accounted for a decline in food imports. Increasing import duties on food may, however, adversely affect food security in low-income urban households.

Population Profile

Solomon Islands has the third largest population in the South Pacific and the region’s fastest population growth rate, at 3.5% annually. The population more than doubled during the last 20 years. Currently 16% of the population lives in Honiara and other urban centers. In Honiara, the annual growth rate is 7%, twice the national figure which places additional pressure on its scarce resources. Urban problems such as unemployment and crime incidence are expected to be serious in the years ahead.

Crude birth rate, per 1000 population (1980-1984), was 42 per year; total fertility rate (children per women at child-bearing age) was 6.4 for the same period and the crude death rate per 1000 population was 10 per year.

About 65% are below 24 years old while 48% are under the age of 15, indicting high dependency ratios. For every 1000 adults between the ages of 15-59 years, there are 1100 dependents younger than 15 years and older than 60 years; 92% of the dependents are children. The sex ratio, the number of males per one hundred females, is 108 which are higher than in most countries but somewhat lower than in neighboring Melanesian countries.

With 48% of the population under 15 years of age, there will be an expected doubling of the school-aged population before the year 2000. The deemed for primary and secondary school places will further outstrip supply. Likewise, the fast growth rate will also impede the provision of health care.

2.0 Role of Women

Women in Solomon Islands are considered disadvantaged on account of the following:

· Less government support is given the subsistence production sector where women play a major part;

· Women’s control over land is now being steadily eroded as the economic and cash value of land rises due to commercial logging and cash cropping;

· Women have lesser access to education, health and labor force which are considered “outside” the home, considered by tradition as the only place for women;

· Women are expected to always obey the husband due to the bride price paid the latter;

· Women work longer hours than men being generally solely responsible for domestic maintenance work, food preparation, care of children, the sick and elderly, and also for small animal husbandry and collecting water and fuel;

· Women comprise only 17% of the overall work force in the formal wage sector and 18% of the public work force;

· Women have very limited access to credit (of the 700 loans recently granted by the Development Bank of Solomon Islands, only 10 were for women);

· Maternal mortality is considered high (one out of 22-25 women will die in childbirth);

· Cases of violence and rape against women are rising;

· Literacy rate among women is only 17%

· Women comprise only 20% of those on overseas training.

3.0 Geographic and Socio-cultural Situation

Solomon Islands is a nation of more than 6000 villages, widely dispersed over 800,000 square kilometers of sea and with varying topographical configurations. The country has more than 900 islands and atolls and a population of 330,000. About 80% of the population live in the two main chains of islands (Choiseul, Isabel and Malaita in the North; New Georgia, Guadalcanal and Makira in the South). Thick tropical rain forests and steep hillsides make travel by land difficult. Less than 10% of the total land area is flat. Most villages are accessible only through dirt tracks. Indeed geography imposes constraints on development, particularly on service delivery.

Melanesian descendants of the early settlers make up 94% of the population. Traditional kastom practices vary from island to island. There are 70 to 90 distinct languages in addition to Pidjin, the lingua franca, and English, the national language. Polynesians occupy the islands and atolls around the rim of the country. There are also Micronesians from Kiribati (1%) resettled by the British in the 1960s and Chinese and Europeans (1%).

The family is the principal basic building block for clans and language groups. Social identity is defined by relationship with one’s relatives and wantoks. The wantok system functions also as a social security system. The wantoks care of the young, the sick and the elderly. They are the support network for an egalitarian society. The values ingrained in the wantoks and self-sufficiency ensured by access to land and other resources have resulted in less social and economic inequalities.

Profound changes are now taking place in the villages of Solomon Islands which have implications to overall development efforts. Old values and social ways have been under pressure from the intrusion of the cash economy. Many families face hardships due to limited opportunities to generate cash.

The other source of social transformation is the church. More than 90% of the people belong to the five major Christian religions which have assumed significant roles in the provision of health and educational service.

All these changes are happening in a land where magic is still widely practiced in causing and curing sickness, ensuring good weather, in divination and ordeals associated with traditional belief systems and where development messages have yet to hurdle geographic and socio-cultural barriers t reach majority f the people.

Both the government and NGOs are in this race against the clock to expand development outreach to the people.

4.0 Environmental Management

The new government, as with the previous one, has expressed concern for the environment and the sustainable exploitation of the country’s natural resources. Both the government and the NGO community agree that the environment need to be taken into account in working out sectoral strategies at the provincial or national levels.

Forest Resources

Approximately 55% of the country’s total land area, or around 2.4 million ha. Is forested. However, due to poor terrain, only 254,000 ha. can be commercially exploited. At the current extraction rate of 300,000 cubic meters per year, at a yield of 100 cubic meters per hectare, a total of 3,000 ha. are harvested annually. Based on this rate, it has been estimated that the life span of the country’s forest resource will be 85 years. Other sources estimate the logging rate to be from 8 to 10 ha. a year and hence, the life span is placed at only 8 to 10 years more.

Information is hard t obtain on the volume of natural forest remaining to be exploited. There have been changes in the types of timber which can be marketed, logging techniques have improved and commercial timber areas have been further reduced by shifting cultivation and cyclones. Since logging is I customary land, the logging rate is also largely beyond government control and supervision.

Conflict over the management of the limited but valuable forest resources concern the issue of how to maximize returns from timber production and exports, while protecting and ensuring sustainable use. Reforestation of logged areas will also have to be intensified to restore the balance between the rate of harvest and the rate of forest production.

Fisheries

Prior to the 1970s, all fish and non-fish products were harvested using subsistence methods. Subsequently, there has been substantial growth in large-scale industrial fishing with the inception of foreign investments. The country is considered one of the richest fishing grounds for tuna in the South Pacific, with resources to have a sustainable yield of 75,000 tons per year. The National Fisheries Development has been recently privatized, having been sold to a foreign firm. Expectations are high that the fisheries sector will achieve adequate returns to the country in terms of export earnings.

Subsistence and inshore fisheries development has been the focus of considerable government and donor support during the last five years. It has been estimated that per capita fish consumption is 50 kg. per person per year, implying an annual subsistence catch of 6,000 to 12,000 tons. The resource base appears adequate to support this level of fishing activity. The volume of catch has also kept pace with rapid population growth. Over the years, the government, assisted by donors, has established 10 provincial fishing centers to assist in exploiting customary fishing grounds and sell fish products to urban markets. To date the centers have been largely underutilized.

There has been no evidence of serious resource depletion in both commercial and subsistence fishing.

Mining

Several known gold deposits remain unexplored. Current production is limited to gold extraction by the local populace which provided SBD 1.2 M in export earnings in 1990. Uncertainty of access to customary land has discouraged prospectors. Environmental protection and land restoration are significant issues in further developing the country’s mining resources.