2025 Pacific Aid Map Launch: Pacific development in an era of aid cuts
A'HARA ROOM - HERITAGE PARK HOTEL, HONIARA
THURSDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2025 - 12:00 - 1:30 PM SBT
2025 Pacific Aid Map Launch: Pacific development in an era of aid cuts
The Pacific’s development outlook stands at a crossroads as major donors cut back aid budgets, narrowing the pool of partners and leaving Pacific governments facing a more fragile financing landscape. The 2025 Pacific Aid Map, produced by leading independent think-tank the Lowy Institute, tracks more than 38,000 aid and development projects across the Pacific to provide the most complete picture of who is funding what, where, and to what effect.
This eighth edition reveals major shifts: aid has fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, Australia holds the line amid a wider Western retreat, the effect of USAID cuts is overstated, China is recalibrating its aid approach, and funding for human development is declining as infrastructure investment surges.
What does this mean for the Solomon Islands, and for the future of development and competition across the Pacific?
Join us for a presentation and discussion of the findings.
Hosted by the Lowy Institute with opening remarks by Andrew Schloeffel, Acting High Commissioner of the Australian High Commission, Solomon Islands.
Buffet lunch will be served.
Event Information
Thursday 13 November 2025
12:00pm for 12:30pm – 1:30pm
A'hara Room, Heritage Park Hotel
Honiara, Solomon Islands
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Senior economist and Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, a dedicated policy research centre within the Lowy Institute. The Centre is committed to producing fresh policy insights and ideas on the most pressing economic development challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region — principally focusing on the emerging and developing economies of Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and South Asia.
Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute and co-author of the Institute's Pacific Aid Map. His research interests include aid and development policy in the Pacific, development finance, sovereign debt, China’s foreign assistance, and Chinese state lending.
