Monocolumn: Change For The World’s Second Least Populous Country

Monocolumn is Monocle’s daily bulletin of news and opinion. Catch up with previous editions here.

Outside of Vatican City, Niue is the world’s least populous country, a self-governing Pacific nation with a headcount comparable to that of a large high school. Home to only 1,400 of the world’s 50,000 ethnic Niueans, the island has suffered a debilitating exodus in recent decades as locals have sought to escape their homeland’s poor soil, lack of natural resources and bloated public sector, which provides a member of parliament for every 30 voters.

Once a colony of New Zealand, Niue voted in 1974 to self-govern “in free association” with its former colonial master, which maintains a high level of involvement in its affairs (Niueans are automatically granted New Zealand citizenship, and 20,000 now live there). New Zealand accepts its tiny Polynesian neighbour will never be a viable economic entity but has a novel suggestion for how it might do better: by turning the island into a retirement village for Australasian pensioners.

The proposal comes in a new report by the New Zealand parliament’s foreign relations committee, which proposes a radical reconfiguration of the country’s engagement with the Pacific. “The experiment of the past 40 years has not worked,” it says of the exercises in self-government in many Pacific islands. “A new direction… should be a matter of the highest priority.”

Niue is singled out as one of the most dysfunctional examples, with misspent foreign aid (New Zealand stumps up NZ$18,000/€10,000 for every Niuean every year) resulting in an overgrown and ineffectual cadre of 400 public servants, and a virtually non-existent private sector. “Whatever direction Niue takes it needs to be driven by entrepreneurs, not public servants,” concludes the report, advocating that New Zealand scale down its aid contributions in Asia and Africa in favour of redoubling its efforts in its own backyard, with an emphasis on stimulating the private sector.

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