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
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…
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…
A new tool to examine Chinese aid in the Pacific
Mapping Chinese aid in the Pacific, an interactive map launched by the Lowy Institute today, is the first comprehensive survey of Chinese-funded aid projects in the Pacific…
Chinese aid in Fiji coming under new pressures
I was in Fiji last week to get an update on Chinese assistance to the country, as part of a larger project I'm doing mapping Chinese aid activities in the Pacific islands, to be…
China's aid white paper: What's changed?
The Chinese Government is frequently criticised for not being transparent about its aid program. As I mentioned in my quick summary yesterday, there's not a lot of specific data…
China's Foreign Aid White Paper: Quick overview
Today, the Chinese Government released its much-awaited second White Paper on Foreign Aid. It's been in the pipeline for a while, as I've noted a number of times, and follows the…
China's foreign aid: New facts and figures
China's foreign aid program is now the sixth largest in the world. Only the UK, US, Germany, France and Japan provided more last year. This is according to a new paper from…
The Australian Financial Review
22 February 2023
The Sydney Morning Herald
20 February 2023
Australian Associated Press
8 February 2023
National Public Radio
8 February 2023
South China Morning Post
27 January 2023
South China Morning Post
27 January 2023
Radio New Zealand
23 November 2022
Australian Associated Press
1 November 2022
The Saturday Paper
5 November 2022
Associated Press
31 October 2022
Australian Associated Press
31 October 2022
The Australian Financial Review
31 October 2022