• 1 Fiji Government, “PM Bainimarama urges Fijian diaspora in Sydney to invest in Fiji”, 2019. <https: (...)
• 2 Jeevika Vivekananthan and Phil Connors, Crossing the Divide: Pacific Diaspora in Humanitarian Resp (...)

“For years, I’ve urged our Fijian diaspora to take up their role in the great story of Fijian progress to build industries through the ingenuity of the Fijian people and to capitalise on the growth of increasingly dynamic and diversifying economy.”1
Fijian Prime minister Hon. Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama
 
“What I have been able to do (is to) organise with different Fijian organisation in Melbourne to come together for disaster relief. What I have made it very clear to each and every organisation is that the group that we form is purely to assist for that particular disaster. As soon as the disaster help is done, we all go separate ways. We will only come together as a group when the next disaster happens. There is no committee, no organisational structure set up, it is purely based on voluntary and volunteers come on board.”2
An Australian-based Fijian participant in humanitarian action

• 3 There is no known causal relation between these two quotes but they are striking because while ref (...)

1The first quote comes from a speech by Fijian Prime minister Bainimarama in Sydney in 2019 whereas the second quote are the words of a testimony published in a report looking into the response to natural disasters of the diaspora from Pacific Island Communities. On the one hand, a government official from Fiji wishes to involve the diaspora in the national development plans, and indeed appeals to it. On the other hand, a member of the Fijian diaspora has engaged actions in favour of their country of origin but intends to do so on their terms and when they deem it necessary.3

• 4 For a review and limits of this “maximalist” approach in defining diasporas, see Agnieszka Weinar (...)
• 5 Nina Glick Schiller et al., “From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration”, (...)

2For the purpose of this work, diaspora refers to people who live in one country but can trace back parentage to a different country (here, Fiji), regardless of the number of generations back and who still hold an attachment to the country and self-identify as being originally from there. The term “diaspora” is here defined in an all-encompassing, broad way.4 It is also closely linked to the term “transmigrant” used by Nina Glick Schiller and other sociologists who describe this phenomenon as “immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one nation-state.”5 In practice, the interconnections can take the form of visits or keeping up to date with local happenings through personal networks or online media.

• 6 Dany Bahar, “Diasporas and Economic Development: A Review of the Evidence and ¨Policy”, cesifo Wor (...)
• 7 UNCTAD, Assessing the Dynamics between Migration and Development in Africa, <https://unctad.org/me (...)
• 8 UNCTAD, Trade, Migration and Development, <https://unctad.org/topic/trade-agreements/trade-migrati (...)
• 9 IOM, “Diasporas and Development : Bridging Societies and States”, International Dialogue on Migrat (...)

3The Fijian government’s interest in its diaspora is in line with the widely held belief that the diaspora of a country contributes positively to the country’s development. This belief is well documented and endorsed by research actors, contending that the diaspora can have a positive impact on either home countries or countries of destination or both.6 The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recalls that trade can be a means to develop diaspora engagement7 and that “trade flows can be enhanced by leveraging diaspora networks to circumvent trade barriers and reduce trade-related transaction costs.”8 The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) adopted a similar position in a report published after the 2013 Diaspora Ministerial Conference stating that “in many parts of the world, diasporas are increasingly recognized as key actors not only in national, bilateral and global affairs, but also in the migration-development nexus.”9

• 10 Commonwealth of Nations, Understanding the Investment Potential of the Fijian Diaspora: Results of (...)
• 11 Jeevika Vivekananthan and Phil Connors, op. cit.

4In the specific case of Fiji, two reports published in 2018 and 2019 provide qualitative information on the Fijian diaspora that can help better understand how and why this diaspora engages, or limits its engagement, with Fiji. Fiji was one of the six Commonwealth countries for which a Diaspora Investor Survey was commissioned by the Commonwealth Secretariat “to provide robust evidence for stakeholders aiming to leverage diaspora capital.”10 The results published in 2018 gave an overview of the investment practices and preferences of the Fijian diaspora community in the UK. In 2019, The Australian-based Centre for Humanitarian Leadership published another report looking into diaspora action from Pacific Island Communities, including Fiji, in the face of natural disasters in the Pacific Islands.11 These reports are the result of initiatives from actors in countries of destination of the Fijian diaspora, in this case the UK and Australia. Such initiatives are not surprising when we think of the involvement of these two countries in development programs, the UK as a former colonial power and Australia as one of the developed economies in the South Pacific region.

• 12 UNCSD, Rio +20, The Future We want, Outcome document of the UNCSD, UNCSD, 2012, 46, <https://susta (...)

5Given that encouraging the diaspora to play a role in development is the new zeitgeist, these reports involving Fiji do not come as a surprise either. Indeed, Fiji is a state made up of a myriad of small islands that display the characteristics of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) as presented in 1992 at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio. They have “unique and particular vulnerabilities including their small size, remoteness, narrow resources and export base, and exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks, including to a large range of impacts from climate change and potentially more frequent and intense natural disasters.”12

• 13 Countries under this category have a GNI per capital between 4,046 USD to 12, 535 USD – World Bank (...)
• 14 UNCTAD, Online Database, <https://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx, accessed o (...)
• 15 Manufacturing includes textiles, garments, footwear, sugar, tobacco, food processing, beverages (i (...)
• 16 Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBS), Fiji National Accounts – Gross Domestic Product, <https://www.sta (...)
• 17 World Bank, “Country Engagement Note for the Republic of Fiji for the period FY2015-2017”, Report (...)
• 18 Fiji Bureau of Statistics (FBS), International Merchandise Trade Statistics 2016, FBS, 2019, <http (...)

6With a GNI of 5,800 USD per capita in 2019 according to the World Bank, it surpasses the Pacific Islands small states’ average of 4,306 and is categorised as an upper middle-income economy.13 For the period 2010-2019, the average flow of inwards FDI represented 6.5% of GDP.14 Data for 2016 indicate that agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining activities accounted for 7.7% of GDP, manufacturing15 and construction represented 13.6% and the rest, the bulk of which were services, accounted for 55.1% (the remaining 23.6% came from tax revenues).16 The trade balance in 2016 stood at -23% of GDP.17 Machinery and mechanical appliances, mineral products and vehicles, aircrafts, vessels accounted for about 45% of imports. Processed food, beverages and spirits accounted for 40% of its exports, with pearls, animals and animal products and textile accounting for approximately a further 30%.18

• 19 United Nations, Migration Data, <https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Migration/, acces (...)
• 20 Michel Beine et al., “Brain Drain and its Determinants: A Major Issue for Small States”, Institute (...)
• 21 “Highly skilled” is defined as tertiary education attainment. See Caglar Ozden and Maurice Schiff, (...)
• 22 OECD, Connecting with Emigrants, A Global Profile of Diasporas 2015, OECD, 2015, 76. <http://dx.do (...)
• 23 Michel Beine, Frédéric Docquier and Hillel Rapoport, “Measuring International Skilled Migration: A (...)
• 24 IOM, Fiji Country Profile, <https://www.iom.int/countries/fiji accessed on 21 September 2023; EUDI (...)
• 25 World Bank, Republic of Fiji: Systematic Country Diagnosis 2017, Report Report n^o 116491-FJ, Washi (...)

7Since 1950, the country has had a negative net migration rate. For the period 2015-2020, the net migration rate stood at -0.7%.19 Not unlike other SIDS,20 Fiji has a very high emigration rate for highly skilled workers,21 which is an additional source of vulnerability. The OECD 2015 Global Profile of Diaspora estimated that the emigration rate of the highly educated in Fiji was of 34.4% for the period 2010/11, ranking it 10th worldwide.22 Further datasets also provide time series data that show high rates of emigration for skilled individuals from Fiji calculated for 1990 and 2000.23 Traditionally, the top countries of destination for Fijians are Australia, New Zealand, the USA, Canada, the UK and, to a lesser extent, other Pacific Islands. More recently, the Middle East has also become a destination country for Fijians, according to the IOM.24 While a list of the precise profiles of high-skilled emigrants is not readily available, a 2017 report by the World Bank pointed out that the Fijian public sector experienced a shortage of skilled and technical workers such as doctors, engineers or IT specialists.25

• 26 An index put together by German relief providers placed Fiji in the 15th position in its 2020 rank (...)

8Fiji is a country that has improved its economic development but the structure of its economy, the threat of more frequent and devastating climate disasters and the global upheaval created by the COVID-19 pandemic enhance its vulnerability.26 With very high emigration rates, in particular of skilled labour, encouraging the diaspora to get involved in local projects could be a solution to maintain development efforts. There is little doubt that converting diaspora members into investors would enable Fiji to tap into a precious means of financing national development plans. This is complicated however by the fact that a part of this diaspora was driven away by the deliberate policies of former governments, as will be explained below. Yet, in recent years, the Fijian government has expressed an interest in engaging its diaspora to contribute to local development.

• 27 The Indian indenture system was put in place in the mid-nineteenth century within the British Empi (...)
• 28 This analysis was made by anthropologist Thomas H. Eriksen on Mauritius and Trinidad, where an inf (...)
• 29 Brij V. Lal, Fiji Islands: From Immigration to Emigration, op. cit.
• 30 Naidu Vijay et al., Fiji: the Challenges and Opportunities of Diversity, Minority Rights Group Int (...)

10The circumstances leading to the existing make-up of the Fijian society and the resulting ethnic tensions are well researched and well documented topics. The first inhabitants had settled on the island long before Fiji became a British colony in 1874. For the purpose of cultivating the sugar cane fields introduced by the British, Indian indentured labourers were brought over in 1878, as part of an empire-wide initiative.27 The entirely different lifestyles, customs, physical features, cultural habits, traditional beliefs and initially, language, set the two groups apart from the onset.28 The move of then governor Arthur Gordons has been interpreted as a desire to let the indigenous population lead its peaceful, bucolic way of life, untainted, while leaving the task of cultivating the land to the newly settled Indo-Fijians.29 This was in fact an application of colonial policies that were based on a strict racial hierarchy and division of labour. Indian migrant workers had come over for the specific purpose of working the land.30 Either way, this gave rise to a situation where although indigenous Fijians had an ancestral bond to the land, the cultivation of this land was devolved to the newcomers. The newcomers prospered but were bound by a subservient relationship with the indigenous population whose members were constitutionally the legitimate owners of the land that they could lease. Once independence was obtained in 1970, the constitutions that followed entrenched the differentiated citizen status and tensions ultimately led to a succession of coups d’état in 1987, 2000 and 2006 when Indo-Fijians were perceived as gaining too much political power when they already had some form of economic success.

• 31 Government of Fiji, Fijian Affairs (Amendment) Decree 2010, Republic of Fiji Islands Government Ga (...)

11The current Prime minister Bainimarama has an ambiguous link to these events. While he was part of the coup in 2006, his stated intention was to prevent abuses against Indo-Fijians. He has built his campaigns and public addresses on the idea that Fiji needs to become unified and that indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians are equally Fijians. In fact, it was under his premiership in 2009, that the word “Fijian” was officially adopted to mean “someone born in Fiji.” Prior to that decree, “Fijian” was understood to mean “indigenous Fijian” and the significant Indo-Fijian minority was identified as “Fijian Indians”. Now, the term “iTaukei” is used to identify indigenous Fijians specifically.31

• 32 Brij V. Lal, Fiji Islands: From Immigration to Emigration, op. cit.
• 33 Naidu Vijay et al., Fiji: the Challenges and Opportunities of Diversity, op. cit., 12.
• 34 Ibidem; Brij V. Lal, Fiji Islands: From Immigration to Emigration, op. cit
• 35 Fiji Government, Ministry of Finance and National, “20-Year Development Plan (2021-2020) for the e (...)
• 36 This has led a researcher to describe Indo-Fijians as the “diaspora of the ‘Twice Banished”. See B (...)
• 37 Ibidem.
• 38 Ibid.

12Fiji’s negative net rate of migration over the past 50 years is not unlike other Pacific Islands. There can be multiple reasons for migration and in the case of Fiji, political instability and ethnic tensions have played a major role. At the time of independence in 1970, uncertainty as to who would effectively rule the island after the departure of the British fed fears of civil unrest.32 In addition, electoral support often tended to be along ethnic lines.33 When the 1987 elections returned votes in favour of the Fiji Labour Party (FLP) with an iTaukei leader seen as pro-Indo-Fijian and willing to enter into a coalition with the National Federation Party (NFP) largely supported by Indo-Fijians, a bout of immigration was observed, amidst fear that Indo-Fijians would be rising up the ranks and taking over.34 However, the leaders of the military coup d’état that closely followed explained that their aim was to safeguard Fiji and keep it for its rightful owners, the iTaukei. To this end, measures were taken which were presented as forms of affirmative action insofar as they were meant to redress an unfair situation where the iTaukei were kept for decades from working the land, a productive economic activity.35 For instance, ethnic requirements featured prominently in some recruitment processes. Another wave of immigration, very likely led mostly by Indo-Fijians, was registered.36 Nationalists held the ideological belief that iTaukei had birthright as indigenous people.37 But the international community condemned these coups that denied the results of free and fair elections and some of the major trading partners of Fiji, namely Australia, the USA and the UK, imposed sanctions. The economic hardships that resulted led to even more emigration. Around the year 2000, the expiration of land leases that had been granted to Indo-Fijians around independence time for a duration of 30 years was an additional driver to emigrate, amidst an international context where preferential trade treatment was increasingly under fire and sugar agreements, such as those featured in the Lomé Convention, were coming to an end.38 The political turmoil and ethnic tensions compounded by the economic uncertainly led more people to emigrate.

• 39 Ibid.
• 40 UNCTAD, Online Database, <https://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx, accessed o (...)
• 41 World Bank DataBank, <https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS?locations=FJ, acce (...)

13When the decision to emigrate is motivated by economic reasons and the hope to get better treatment, some family members are often left behind. It is then the responsibility of the migrant to help support them. As such, members of the Fijian diaspora maintain close ties with their home country of Fiji. This diaspora can be seen as transnational citizens whose lives span across the different states they are linked to and are eager to contribute to the education of other members or to celebrations of family milestone events.39 This is visible in the average rate of remittances of 5.3% of GDP for the period 2005-2019 whereas for the period 1979-1999, remittances had averaged 1.44% of GDP.40 In 2019, remittances stood at 5.2%, which placed Fiji below the Pacific islands small states average of 7.4.41

• 42 See Jeevika Vivekananthan and Phil Connors, Crossing the Divide: Pacific Diaspora in Humanitarian (...)

14Policies targeting the diaspora seek to foster remittances, although very clearly, the motivation to send remittances is personal and linked to one’s family. However, they transform the diaspora members into agents who do not simply send money but can potentially improve trade relations and invest their skills, network and other resources in local development efforts, beyond the family unit. In some cases, mobilising the diaspora so as to obtain a coordinated response can help have greater leverage and impact and benefit the wider community, as in the case of diaspora response in humanitarian crises.42

• 43 European Union Global Diaspora Facility, Diaspora Engagement Map: Fiji, <https://diasporafordevelo (...)

15Broadly speaking, measures addressed to the diaspora either try to develop return migration or to promote other forms of involvement without encouraging relocation. According to the European Union Global Diaspora Facility, Fiji does not officially have diaspora engagement policies or institutions dedicated to the purpose of reaching out to the diaspora.43 Despite the absence of formal structures, high-ranking government officials, including the Prime minister, appeal to the diaspora and some measures taken target overseas nationals and their descendants. The following table presents some of the key initiatives (government or other) of interest to the Fijian diaspora.

• 44 Ibidem.
• 45 Fiji Government, <https://www.fiji.gov.fj/Home>, accessed on 18 February 2021.

Source: European Union Global Diaspora Facility44, Fiji Government website45

• 46 European Union Global Diaspora Facility, Diaspora Engagement Map: Fiji, op. cit.; RBF, Personal Re (...)

17Making provisions to better capitalize on remittances is not surprising, given the role remittances play as a source of finance in developing countries. In the case of Fiji, remittances have been the second largest source of foreign exchange for the country since 2004.46 Although the causal link is not clearly established, remittances have markedly increased since the 1987 and 2000 coups when many Indo-Fijians migrated.

• 49 In 2018 General Elections, for 637,527 registered voters, 7,970 were overseas (less than 1.5% of t (...)
• 50 Idem, 26.

20Perhaps as a way to establish his legitimacy in appealing to the diaspora, Prime minister Bainimarama recalls that the wording of the Constitution was changed under his leadership to reflect that a Fijian is someone who was born in Fiji, irrespective of ethnicity. Reaching out to the diaspora could be a calculated move to attract a source of much needed financial and technical resources. Yet some diaspora initiatives may not be without political consequences. Granting dual citizenship and the right to vote as “overseas Fijians” to members of the diaspora can be double-edged. For the time being however, the number of registered voters is insignificant.49 In addition, the procedure to register and vote is fairly complicated, involving costs related to the need to secure the services of a notary.50 Arguably, the vote of overseas Fijians is of little consequence in the final results of the elections. Taking them into account is likely to serve the purpose of fostering a feeling of belonging.

• 51 Commonwealth of Nations, Understanding the Investment Potential of the Fijian Diaspora: Results of (...)
• 52 According to the report published by the Commonwealth Secretariat on the Investment Potential of t (...)

21For Fiji, flows of remittances are central to the contribution of the diaspora to local development efforts. However, remittances are personal flows and they are intended for specific people. The senders decide who the recipients are. Moreover, a study that focused on members of the Fijian diaspora in the UK has revealed that respondents would more willingly get involved in local projects if they knew that their family and communities were the direct beneficiaries.51 Along with measures to better capitalise on remittances, the government could decide to have other policies aiming to involve the diaspora in nationwide projects. Yet, the current government’s initiatives do not include an overarching organisation commissioned to deal specifically with diaspora affairs. Such an organisation would coordinate action and with the resulting leverage, embark on larger-scale, national projects involving the diaspora. Instead, the existing policies to engage with the diaspora rely on creating the right informal relations and atmosphere that will convince members of the diaspora to become involved. A state-sponsored agency is also more likely to be suspected of corruption and misappropriation of funds.52

• 53 Nicholas Van Hear, New Diasporas. The Mass Exodus, Dispersal and Regrouping of Migrant Communities(...)
• 54 Sanja Franc, Marina Peric Kaselj, and Ivona Skreblin Kirbis, “Policies for promoting diaspora inve (...)

25Engaging with the diaspora is a complex task for any state since a country’s diaspora is far from being a homogeneous group53 and precise statistical data on the diaspora is not readily available. Fiji is no exception. There are multiple personal trajectories and reasons that account for the decision to leave the country of origin. Better prospects or family reunification could act as pull factors and political instability, economic turmoil and ethnic discrimination could be push factors. All of these, along with the different socio-economic statuses of diasporans, from highly-skilled to unskilled workers, make it extremely difficult, indeed impossible to have a one-size-fit-all approach and discourse in the hope of federating everyone. Differentiated diaspora policies applied in other countries54 are of no use in Fiji given the efforts to emphasize national unity.