Paradise for sale. The sweet illusions of economic growth in Vanuatu

Abstract

Despite several years of economic growth, social tensions appear in Vanuatu's capital, Port-Vila, where a growing number of inhabitants see their daily life conditions becoming harder. A vast amount of land has been leased to expatriate investors, and the economic development is mainly supported and controlled by expatriates and/or non indigenous Ni-Vanuatu. The country's rural population, which still mostly lives from subsistence agriculture, begins to see its stable and steady traditional lifestyle threatened by the effets of development. It is then necessary to remind that the calcutation of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not accurate to measure the quality and standards of life in Vanuatu, who has been elected "World's happiest nation" by a NGO using other, challenging criteria.