Programs & Projects

Mapping Foreign Assistance in the Pacific

The Pacific Aid Map

The Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map is an analytical tool designed to enhance aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment and accountability of foreign aid through enhanced transparency of aid flows. The Pacific Aid Map team has collected data on more than 57,000 projects and activities across all the Pacific Islands from 67 donors from 2008 onwards. This raw data has been made freely available on an interactive platform, allowing users to drill down and manipulate the data in a variety of ways. Updates are made on a yearly basis.

The Pacific Aid Map, first launched in 2018, is funded through Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The project builds off of the proof of concept established by the Chinese Aid in the Pacific map launched by the Institute in 2015.

Experts
Latest publications
News and media
Deputy Director, Indo-Pacific Development Centre
Research Associate, Pacific Aid Map
The Translator: The nomenclature of foreign aid
The Translator: The nomenclature of foreign aid
Heard diplomats or analysts using a new turn of phrase only to wonder, “What does that mean?” Today we ask…What is Official Development Assistance?Official Development Assistance…
Measuring the climate cost to Pacific development
Measuring the climate cost to Pacific development
Tropical cyclone Lola slammed into Vanuatu's northern islands last week, the third high intensity storm to hit the island nation in seven months. Lola was also the earliest…
Pacific Aid Map 2023 - Key Findings Report
Reports
Pacific Aid Map 2023 - Key Findings Report
The annual Pacific Aid Map — launched by the Lowy Institute in 2018 — is an analytical tool designed to improve aid and development effectiveness in the Pacific Islands region. It…
Pacific aid enters a new era
Pacific aid enters a new era
Development priorities across the Pacific are changing, with new players and new financial instruments emerging to increase the scope and magnitude of funding required. The latest…
2023 Pacific Aid Map
Interactives
2023 Pacific Aid Map
Australia is the Pacific's largest development partner in our sixth annual interactive, mapping every aid project in the Pacific from 2008–2021 as the region faces new development…
China’s influence as a Pacific donor
China’s influence as a Pacific donor
China is now a principal donor in the Pacific alongside traditional development partners. Demonstrating its aid commitment to the region, China recently mobilised its navy and air…
Pacific Aid Map 2022
Interactives
Pacific Aid Map 2022
Updated research shows the unprecedented disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Pacific Islands region caused upheaval in how international donors provide aid to the…
Vaccinating the Pacific
Interactives
Vaccinating the Pacific
This Interactive provides country-specific modelling of Covid-19 vaccination rates for each Pacific Island Country, using data available to October 2021. The Interactive employs a…
Mapping Pacific aid: Facebook, India and money laundering
Mapping China’s opaque aid program in the Pacific Islands was more complicated and time-consuming than I had anticipated. I made peace with this fact when I found myself building…
Witnessing an opaque Pacific power shift
Today the Lowy Institute’s Melanesia program launches a major update to the Institute’s flagship research mapping project on Chinese Aid in the Pacific.*  The map now…
Papua New Guinea Post-Courier
15 November 2023
The Fiji Times
1 November 2023
ABC RN Breakfast
31 October 2023