This timely and ambitious volume - a product of close research collaboration with the United Nations Multi-Country Office for Micronesia - is conceived as a holistic “journey” across various domains of progress in a region that, despite fundamental common traits, remains vast and diverse. Pacific island countries and territories (PICTs) have (too) often been identified with elements of vulnerability, whether these be social, economic, or environmental in nature. While these factors cannot be overlooked, this volume aims to showcase not only the long-standing and emerging challenges but, perhaps more importantly, the opportunities, the resilience, the resourcefulness, and the ambition that local socioeconomic development patterns in the Pacific already encompass. Beyond PICTs themselves, we hope that the analyses collected in this book will contribute to highlighting the global significance of the human–nature nexus in the current Anthropocene. Often captured in the concept of “small islands, big oceans”, the importance of the region and its islands and peoples transcends the geographical remoteness and small size of many PICTs.
Edoardo Monaco is an Asia-based international development and sustainability specialist. He currently serves as Associate Professor and Acting Head of the Department of Social Sciences (DSS), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS), at the Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (BNU-HKBU UIC) in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, China. His interests lie in comparative development and the rise of the Global South, with particular regard to innovation for sustainable development; economic growth, diversification, and inclusion; South–South cooperation; Small Island Developing States (SIDS); and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Edoardo regularly collaborates with intergovernmental organizations, prominent think tanks, and global media platforms. He has been a member of the China Association of the Club of Rome since 2021 and a research fellow at the United Nations Multi-Country Office for Micronesia since 2023.
Masato Abe is the Economist of the United Nations Multi-Country Office for Micronesia, Kolonia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). He has extensive experience in enterprise development and financing for development with a special emphasis on the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) sector, global value chains, disaster risk reduction, and access to finance. Before joining the secretariat of the United Nations, he worked in the global automotive, electronics, and high-technology industries. He has published numerous books, book chapters, journal articles, policy papers, and other writings for various outlets. He holds marketing, business administration, and economics degrees and is a research fellow at Thammasat University, Bangkok, a visiting lecturer at Waseda University, Tokyo, and a special lecturer at Naresuan University, Phitsanulok.
