Nearly a decade after coup, the (Western) aid tap is back on in Fiji

When military commander Frank Bainimarama seized power from Fiji’s civilian government in 2006, it did not take long for Western donors to discontinue much of their aid engagement with the country — part of their efforts to encourage a restoration of democracy in the Pacific’s second most populous developing island nation.

Australia, Fiji’s largest bilateral donor at the time, and the European Union redirected aid from the public sector toward nongovernmental channels. Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank refrained from approving new financing.