Partners
Think Pacific exists to support the incredible work of our partners in Fiji, encouraging a uniquely Fijian approach to development and working towards existing initiatives. Our partners are the backbone of what Think Pacific serves.
We have MOUs with Governmental Ministries such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of iTaukei Affairs, but are also partnered with 70+ NGOs, NSOs and small businesses in Fiji.
Because of this, every Think Pacific program is planned in collaboration and at the request of communities and local organisation and directed and monitored by Fijian Ministries to ensure our projects have real purpose and long term sustainability. We are respected for working within the framework of the government, adding immediate benefit to long-term strategies through projects themselves and continued funding provided year round. This includes driving forward the aims of Fiji’s National Development Plan and being a key facilitator of the Ministry of Health’s ‘Towards a Healthy Fiji Islands Initiative’.
Here’s a link to the current FNDP:
This means that every project is designed to be working towards these wider goals and each project is working on behalf of our partners. We believe it’s incredibly important that you are aware of this as a participant on one of our programs, that all project aims you are specifically supporting and working towards are guided and monitored by Fiji. More information will be coming your way about the specifics of this for your project, but here’s a video introducing just a few of our key partnerships in Fiji…
Why is it Important?
Partnerships are the most effective means of working in a unified and genuinely effective way towards shared goals. They are the reason Think Pacific is structured in the way we are and ultimately why the project you are joining exists in the way it does!
Not only is this important for the practical elements of the development sector, it is an important ethical point too. For international support to be genuinely effective, there must be an understanding that due to cultural and societal differences, the direction of ‘development’ must be locally-led and any resources distribution is directed to where it is most useful, particularly in a country such as Fiji with a history of Western imposition.
Within the partnership dynamic, there is an exchange, and we believe there is a huge amount of value that can be come from open discussion, when nuanced perspectives are listened to and engaged with and particularly when those perspectives are valued on a global level. Here’s a video we’ve created communicating just that: