A decade after coup, (Western) aid is back in Fiji

When military commander Frank Bainimarama seized power from Fiji’s civilian government in 2006, it did not take long for Western donors to discontinue much of their aid engagement with the country — part of their efforts to encourage a restoration of democracy in the Pacific’s second most populous developing island nation. Australia, Fiji’s largest bilateral donor at the time, and the European Union redirected aid from the public sector toward nongovernmental channels. Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank refrained from approving new financing.
Now that Bainimarama is prime minister of a democratically elected government following elections in September 2014, the Western aid tap to Suva is back on. On Wednesday, the World Bank’s board of directors approved $50 million in financing for the Transport Infrastructure Investment Project, the bank’s first major investment in the country since 1992. Devex has learned that ADB, European Union and Australia are also in the process of resuming full-fledged development cooperation with Fiji.

https://www.devex.com/news/nearly-a-decade-after-coup-the-western-aid-t…