Kiribati 2018
Kiribati is a country located in the Central Pacific with a population of around 115,000 people. Its economy is largely dependent on fishing, tourism and foreign aid. Kiribati has strong diplomatic ties with many other countries including Australia, New Zealand and China. In 2018, Kiribati’s foreign policy focused on strengthening relationships with its Pacific neighbors while promoting economic development in the region. According to extrareference, Kiribati is a presidential republic where Taneti Mamau is the current president who was elected in 2016. The Parliament consists of one house: the House of Assembly which is elected for four-year terms. The President appoints the Prime Minister who then forms a government responsible for executive power.
Yearbook 2018
Kiribati. In January, a ferry disappeared on its way from the island of Nonouti to the capital Tarawa, located on the atoll of the same name. On board were 88 people, of whom over 20 were schoolchildren. It was later found that the ship had sunk. According to Countryaah.com, Tarawa Atoll is the capital city of Kiribati, a country located in Micronesia. Seven survivors were found in a lifeboat after about ten days.
In September, the opposition tried to oust Parliament’s President Tebuai Uaai after he was accused of sexual harassment and for appearing drunk in connection with an international conference earlier this year. The President himself prevented the matter from being voted on by halting the opposition’s motions before they could be presented to Parliament.
In October, Teuea Toatu, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, announced that the Green Climate Fund would contribute $ 28 million to a project to ensure about half of the country’s population has constant access to clean water. Other funding for the project, Kiribati’s largest ever of its kind, will come from the government, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
- According to Abbreviationfinder: KIR is an three letter acronym for Kiribati.
Kiribati Geopolitics
Kiribati is an independent parliamentary republic from the United Kingdom since 1979, made up of 33 atolls located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, very distant from each other, to the point of extending over an area that is equivalent to the entire continental territory of the USA. Several islands are uninhabited and most of the population is concentrated in the chain of 16 atolls of the Gilbert Islands. The political system is based on a presidential model, with a single-chamber parliament of 46 members elected every four years. The president, directly elected by the citizens from a small list of candidates drawn up by the parliament, can hold a maximum of three mandates and can be disheartened by the Assembly itself. The geographic arrangement of the country means that it suffers from two structural problems: the lack of adequate connection infrastructures and the marked dependence on foreign countries at an economic level. The government of Kiribati has excellent relations with the other countries bordering the Pacific Ocean (especially Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan), towards which it depends on the commercial and development aid points of view. To strengthen the country’s exposure to foreign countries is added a national economy that is not particularly developed, as shown by the per capita GDP, which is among the lowest in the entire oceanic continent. The service sector generates more than 65% of GDP, while agriculture is almost exclusively focused on the cultivation of coconut palm, which is also the most exported product. But most of the national income comes from abroad. in particular from the licenses for the fishing activity granted to neighboring countries, from the remittances of workers across the border – which represent more than 5 million dollars a year – and from international aid, which account for about 20-25% of the national GDP. The rise in water levels, linked to climate change, poses a serious threat to the survival of the country, which is among the areas at the highest risk. For this reason, the government has shown itself to be very sensitive to the issues of climate change and has participated with assiduity and activism in the debates within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Unfccc). In 2009 he participated in the Climate Vulnerable Forum, which took place in the Maldives and which was also attended by nine other countries with a high climate risk (the so-called ‘V11’). In 2010 it hosted the Climate Change Conference in Tarawa. Sustainability issues characterized the long presidency of Anote Tong, elected in 2003 and reconfirmed in January 2012, in his third and last term.
