Informal Settlements Grapple With Climate Extremes in Pacific Islands

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by Catherine Wilson (sydney)
Monday, April 13, 2026
Inter Press Service

SYDNEY, April 13 (IPS) - A rising cycle of poverty and extreme weather threatens many towns and cities, especially those situated on coastlines, in the Pacific Islands. Urban centres in the Pacific have grown at an unprecedented rate this century, rapidly straining national resources for urban planning. But governments are now making progress on improving people’s lives in the informal settlements that dominate the urban sprawl in some of the region’s largest cities.

“The threat is already severe and escalating,” Pasha Carruthers, Climate Change Loss and Damage Adviser at the regional development organisation, Pacific Community (SPC), told IPS. “For many households, repeated flooding, heat extremes and infrastructure damage are pushing them into cycles of loss and damage where recovery is incomplete and vulnerability deepens over time. Without targeted intervention, climate change will increasingly erode human development gains and make urban poverty more entrenched.”

Today 80 percent of the world’s population lives in towns and cities, reports the United Nations. In comparison, about 30 percent of Pacific Islanders are urban dwellers. But, overall, the urban growth rate in the region far exceeds the global average. Urban centres are growing at 4.5 percent per year in the Solomon Islands, 4.1 percent in Papua New Guinea and 2.4 percent in Vanuatu, far above the global average of 1.4 percent, reports the World Bank.

The long histories of Pacific Islanders, especially in Melanesia, are predominantly rural and the influx of people, particularly the younger generation, to urban centres has been driven by the modernising objectives of 20th-century post-Independence governments. They hold the promise of jobs, cash incomes, access to hospitals and higher education and more exciting lifestyles.

But developing island nations have, for decades, grappled with limited budgets, resources and expertise to invest in town planning. Lack of affordable housing, the expense of building and a shortage of titled and serviced land have contributed to the organic growth of unplanned squatter settlements. For those on low incomes, they offer the only feasible accommodation. But, at the same time, settlers face poor security of tenure on the land where they are residing and, in some cases, illegal occupation of either state- or customary-owned land and an absence of services, such as electricity, water, sanitation and waste management.

From 2010 to 2020, more than 23,000 new buildings were erected in informal settlements, but only 6,500 in formal residential areas in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) capital, where an estimated half of all residents live in settlements, reports the PNG National Research Institute. In the neighbouring Solomon Islands, the city of Honiara is growing at 6-8 percent per year, with settlements, which are expanding at a rate of 12 percent, home to about 40 percent of its population, reports the Australian National University.

Now, many settlements, which are located on disaster-prone marginal land, are on the urban frontline of climate damage. During this century in the southwest Pacific, ‘the total number of tropical cyclones may decrease, but with an increase in the average intensity and an increase in the impacts of tropical cyclones through more intense rainfall and greater coastal inundation due to sea level rise,’ reports the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

The destruction they can inflict on coastal cities was highlighted when two Category 4 Cyclones, Judy and Kevin, descended on Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, three years ago. They left a trail of destruction in damaged roads, buildings and infrastructure, loss of peri-urban food gardens and increased poverty in the city’s settlements.

In Freswota, a settlement of about 12,000 people on the outskirts of Port Vila, the most precarious dwellings collapsed, others lost roofs and walls, many suffered severe flooding and there was a loss of local incomes and further deprivation of clean water. “The most vulnerable people in the settlements when we have a cyclone are the elderly, those in poor health or with medical conditions and people who are without relatives here to support them,” Chief Ken Hivo, a community leader in Freswota, recounted at the time.

Nearly two years later, the Freswota community was among those devastated again. As residents endured extreme rain during the wet season, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck near Port Vila, a city of about 64,000 people, in December 2024. There were fatalities and injuries, while homes, schools, hospitals and roads suffered collapses and damage. The infrastructure damage bill for the country was estimated at USD 200 million.

Over the past two years, “we have experienced a lot of flooding and rain,” Cathy Hivo, Ken’s wife, told IPS in recent days. “But when we had a lot of rain, we also experienced the earthquake. Homes and buildings were damaged, businesses were forced to close and many people were affected. Many people lost their livelihoods.”

Even today, “we are still traumatised – we are still trying to build back. We are still trying to get back to our normal life,” she continued.

The upgrading of Freswota to a climate-resilient community is vital to the country achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, which calls for building resilient, safe and sustainable cities by 2030.

“One of the most urgent measures is for governments to formally recognise informal settlements within urban planning, climate adaptation and disaster risk management systems,” Carruthers told IPS, such as early warning systems and basic service networks. And “community-led risk mapping, secure tenure pathways and inclusive planning processes are essential so that residents are partners in solutions.”

And there is significant political will emerging to make robust urban development a reality in a number of Pacific Island countries. The Vanuatu Government, for instance, has begun implementing the Vanuatu Affordable and Resilient Settlement (VARS) Project to improve land management and living conditions in 23 of Port Vila’s settlements, with developments including better drainage, roads, water, sanitation, and waste services.

Also critical to long-term climate resilience is the reform of land tenure policies to increase affordable housing. That means reconciling issues of landownership with the need to expand urban residential areas and related infrastructure. More “serviced land through partnerships with customary landowners, investing in climate-resilient social housing and supporting incremental housing upgrades that reflect how low-income households actually build over time,”, advocates Carruthers.

PNG is also driving reforms with a joint initiative between the municipal authority for Port Moresby and the National Housing Corporation to begin transitioning informal settlements to formal suburbs with equitable infrastructure and basic services. In April last year, the ‘Settlement to Suburb’ project was launched in Eight Mile Settlement, a vast community of about 25,000 people situated on the northeastern outskirts of PNG’s capital. ‘Unplanned settlements have been with us too long and this phase needs to end. Our people deserve a better standard of living and good quality of life,’ Powes Parkop, Governor of the National Capital District (Port Moresby), told the media.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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