The messages from the first panel were clear about what kind of economy is needed and what should be prioritised first in a reset: people, protection of wages, food security to ensure no malnutrition and real hunger, enhancing and scaling up Fiji’s social safety nets, whilst providing relief through training and reskilling, and to support innovation and starts-up.

RESETTING TOWARDS AN ECONOMY OF SOLIDARITY

by Maureen Penijueli, Coordinator PANG

The messages from the first panel were clear about what kind of economy is needed and what should be prioritised first in a reset: people, protection of wages, food security to ensure no malnutrition and real hunger, enhancing and scaling up Fiji’s social safety nets, whilst providing relief through training and reskilling, and to support innovation and starts-up.

We also saw the emergence of key ideas around the need for basic income protection beyond the current proposals of cash injections from pension funds, a cashless society based on indigenous system of exchange (exchange of goods, services and skills), a debt holiday from commercial banks, hire purchase companies and utility providers for ordinary workers, enhancing indigenous systems of knowledge innovation.

Nearly all the panelists agreed that agriculture and in particular rural agriculture must become the priority for the government in its drive to diversify the economy.

As one panellist noted, it is the role of government to provide the supporting infrastructure for the transition to a more diversified economy in the middle to long term.

Key policies such as import substitution, local infant industry protection, and requiring local content in investments (like minimum levels of local foods purchased for hotels) can start to help shift towards a more diversified economy.

We need out of the box thinking while challenging some of our long held basic assumptions.While the pandemic has brought unprecedented widespread financial and economic pain a defining feature of the economic shock has been the strength of the community reaction.

The strength of the human spirit to share and care, can be and is the basis for resilience across Fiji.

From bartering systems to customary land tenure systems, once again the resilience of traditional systems have acted as the fall-back safety which people have been able to rely upon once formal employment and remittances began to disappear.

An economy based in solidarity and support for communities. One key takeaway from the  first Reset panel was the way that indigenous intelligence can point the way forward.

An economy of solidarity starts with acknowledging that the role of an economy is to support people, it is a tool to help communities not an end in and of itself.

The policies and ideas that shape Fiji’s economy can change, there is little stopping that.

An economy that supports people, nourishes the environment, strengthens culture and increases everyone’s happiness is possible and necessary in the wake of the global pandemic.

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WHAT THE PANELISTS SAID?

“There is a need to reset and look at strengthening the resilience of public financing to be stronger to face shocks. People had lost their jobs while there were some that were on leave without pay or working on reduced hours. Businesses had lost cash-flow, especially the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). There were many MSMEs that would fall and rise while there were others that might not rise again.”

Former Reserve Bank of Fiji Governor, Savenaca Narube

“If you look at the other side, it has also magnified the kindness in human beings, the goodness in us and has brought that to the fore. We can see that in ‘Barter for a Better Fiji’; we can see people offering goods and services to people in exchange for things; we can see the generosity, the Veilomani food bank initiative and a number of other initiatives towards assisting. The opportunity is to use these structures which are very strong in Fiji in order to reset our economy.”

Ram Bajekal.

“I think that this is the time for us to look at traditional food preservation systems. We used to preserve breadfruit without the use of freezers, there was drying. There are a lot of techniques that still exist that need to come to the forefront and mainstream education for us to have food for natural disasters. But right now, to replace a lot of that which we think is a mainstay.”

Sashi Kiran, Founder and CEO of FRIEND Fiji.

“”I would like to see a budget which stimulates the economy, not so much in an expenditure-type thing, but in investment. I want to see a budget that hits where it matters. Which is the engine of growth? The business sector is the engine of growth. If business grows then the economy grows and the flow-on effect is there on everybody. I would like to see money going into the business sector where we are making revenue.”

Rohit Kishore – Acting Dean at the Fiji National University.

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Brought to you in partnership with University of the South Pacific, Oxfam in the Pacific and Pacific Network on Globalisation.