The Fiji 'Cinderellas' flourishing under the safety and comfort of Koroipita, near Lautoka. Photo: Peter Drysdale/PMC

Pacific.Scoop
By Megan Anderson

In a new subdivision just outside Lautoka, Fiji, dozens of Cinderellas are stepping out of doors and learning to dance.

This is how Rotary Club of Lautoka aid worker Peter Drysdale describes the young girls who are blooming in the safe environment of Koroipita, a NZAid-assisted and Rotary-funded community nurturing 80 families out of Fiji’s biggest problems – informal settlements.

“We call it the Cinderella Syndrome,” Drysdale says. “When they first move in, the little girls hardly ever leave the house – they’re scared.”

Wait a year, and the girls are transformed.

“They’re bouncing when visitors come and visit, they chatter away. The change in those little girls is dramatic.”

The Rotahomes-run and NZAid-assisted settlement of Koroipita, which is housing families from Lautoka's informal settlements in Fiji. Photo: Peter Drysdale/PMC

The houses are cared for, the gardens manicured: Drysdale says the 350 occupants of Koroipita are proud of their town, keeping it in a state that, he says, is “truly beautiful” to see.

The families are all from Lautoka’s squatter towns, where poverty, disease – and often crime – are a way of life.

“They love living here because they get security,” Drysdale says. “They’ve come out of slums where they get exploited – people demand more money from them all the time.”

NZAid estimated in 2007 that around 140,000 people in Fiji were living in informal settlements, most lacking basic amenities and access to services.

More than one third of the households in these settlements were living below the poverty line, with another third at risk of falling below in times of crisis or increasing living costs.

Second stage
NZAid is contributing almost NZ$3 million across five years towards the second stage of the Koroipita project, which will see the construction of roads, a community hall and a further 160 cyclone-safe houses.

The new houses will see the community grow to 1050.

“This is the first time such a large sum has been thrown at the project,” Drysdale says of NZAid’s contribution.

The Informal Settlements Project has been a long-term priority for NZAid’s work in Fiji since it released its five-year Programme Strategy in 2005, focusing upon assisting those in informal and squatter settlements in Fiji.

But New Zealand’s foreign policy is hampering these efforts.

Since the December coup in 2006, the NZ$8 million a year NZAid had assigned to Fiji was reduced to $5 million (although this rose to $6.5 million after thousands were left homeless after the flooding in January this year).

In addition to serious delays on the project – including a six month delay in funding for Koroipita since the 2006 coup and the New Zealand High Commissioner’s expulsion from Suva in 2007, NZAid’s refusal to work with Fiji’s military government has meant working instead through Fiji-based NGO partners.

The Rotary Club of Lautoka is one of these. Others include Save the Children Fiji and Habitat for Humanity.

In addition, NZAid has implemented sanctions on scholarships and training for Fijians, as well as “a halt on any potential new development assistance initiatives which would require a partnership with the military regime in Fiji”.

‘Big stick’ policy
NZAid says these sanctions will be in place until Fiji makes “a firm commitment to return to democratic government”.

Retired Fiji diplomat Peter Thomson says New Zealand has taken up a “big stick policy” that is harming those who will most suffer its effects: the poor.

“It’s always going to be the people at the bottom who suffer,” he says. “Poverty is kicking in big time.”

In his controversial speech to the Australia-Fiji Business Council last month, Thomson described New Zealand as uniting with Australia in a foreign policy of punishment, conceived in a “mood of spite” – referring to Fiji’s recent expulsion from the Commonwealth, Pacific Forum and PACER Plus negotiations and travel bans beimg  imposed on Fijians working for the military government (and their families).

At the same conference, Foreign Minister Murry McCully argued that Fiji’s expulsion from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Forum was a decision settled upon “in sorrow, rather than in anger”.

Thomson argues such sanctions as travel bans serve only to further weaken good governance in Fiji.

“People don’t want to serve on those boards because they get sanctions. When you live on a small island country like Fiji travel is essential,” Thomson said.

“Wedges are being driven between Pacific Islands against their will.”

Dr Yvonne Underhill-Sem, head of development studies at the University of Auckland, notes how strengthening governance in the Pacific is no longer a priority for NZAid.

Rotahomes volunteers at Koroipita village, Lautoka, Fiji. Photo: Peter Drysdale/PMC

Poverty reduction
Strengthening governance was an important part of NZAid’s earlier focus upon poverty reduction.

Dr Underhill-Sem says the merger of NZAid into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) in March this year – and the turn to focus on sustainable economic development – has affected the integrity of NZAid.

“There is little room for NZAid to argue for an agenda that is not the MFAT agenda,” she says.

“There’s always been the concern NZAid would be affected by this.”

While NZAid admit the sanctions have “decreased the level of engagement around central/local government policy making that NZAID has been involved in”, they say this will have little effect on the success of the informal settlements programme.

“Many informal settlements in Fiji are not recognised/serviced by central or local government, meaning that a significant proportion of the work would have been undertaken by NGOs regardless of the political situation.”

In a recent meeting with Commodore Bainimarama, Thomson says the interim prime minister confirmed Australia and New Zealand foreign policy was driving Fiji towards more tolerant countries in Asia.

“He said to me they are hurt by what is happening with Australia and New Zealand’s policy, and reacting to it by putting out their own big stick and going north.”

Thomson says the only way to deal with Fiji – without enforcing military government – is through constructive dialogue.

‘Pacific Way’
“It’s what we used to call the Pacific Way,” he adds.

“The President made it very clear to me his door is open to Australia and New Zealand.

“So the door is still open – why don’t Australia and New Zealand just drop the big stick and get talking?”

Meanwhile, in Koroipita, Drysdale says he is just happy the delays seem to be coming to a close.
“We’re happy that things are progressing.”

In order to see the project through the long-term, an NGO trust – Model Towns Trust – is already in the process of being formed.

Drysdale has worked for 25 years housing around 3050 people, while at the same time maintaining a full-time job.

Just seeing the “Cinderellas” happy and safe out of doors, he says, is reward enough for the six years it has taken Koroipita to reach the state it’s in today.

“It truly inspires me to help those people.”

Megan Anderson is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student at AUT University.