OVER 20% PEOPLE IN PACIFIC LIVE IN HARDSHIP: WORLD BANK

Over 20 per cent of people in Pacific Island Countries, including Solomon Islands, live in hardship.

A World Bank report says extreme poverty remains rare in the pacific, but that over 20 percent of people in most countries live in hardship.

The report defines living in hardship as being unable to meet all basic needs such as food, fuel and medicines.

Evidence was drawn from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Fiji and Vanuatu.

The report says Pacific countries are most at risk to economic and environmental shocks, and people face a number of growing threats, from NCDs to natural disasters.

It stated that increasingly when these shocks occur, they threaten to push families, and sometimes entire communities, into hardship.

The report further stated that people, communities, enterprises and governments are better equipped to pursue productive opportunities and take risks when they are not suffering or vulnerable to hardship.

The report was written as a companion piece to the 2014 World Development Report on Risk and Opportunity.

It draws on data from Household Income and Expenditure Surveys carried out in the 8 Pacific Island Countries.