population

the Barbados Conference

Niue wants to increase population

BEFORE the Small Island Conference took place, there was a three-week-long meeting in New York in preparation for the International Conference on Popu lation and Development to be held in Cairo later this year. In New York, Niue was the smallest nation state represented, apart from the Vatican City which has a population of 800 celibates. However, the two smallest nations together shared a similar perspective albeit from different angles. The Vatican would like everyone to eschew family planning methods and thus increase population, and while most other nations want to reduce population growth, as Niuean Finance Minister Sani Elia Lakatani explained to PIM, his government wants to increase the population of his island, at least.

“We have a target of 5000 by the end of the century, and at the mo ment we have

just over

2300.” How ever, he can

didly admits

that this goal is unlikely to be met. Emi gration is the

major problem

so that New

Zealand’s last census recorded six times as many Niueans as the island itself 14,400. Lakatani admits that previous governments have tried to persuade emigrants to return, but without success.

“I believe that people want to come back it’s just that there are no jobs for them to come back to,” he said. The minister was in New York “so we can find out what’s happening elsewhere. In the past we have been isolated from events in the rest of the world, but by coming to meetings like this, we can find out now to improve things back home. At least we can understand the problems of the world, expose ourselves to what is happening out there”.

Of course, in some ways, the island has been over exposed to the outside world.

The emigrants don’t leave because they dislike their homeland, but because with such a small economic base, the island cannot provide the jobs and salaries which its people want. “Ninety-nine per cent of Niueans want to work for money,” he points out, “so a subsistence based economy holds no attractions for them.” □

Niuean minister: Sani Elia Lakatani