The systematic country diagnostic (SCD) covers a group of nine small Pacific Island countries (PIC-9) - Kiribati, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The document updates the previous SCD, completed in 2016, and assesses the emerging challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing climate change risks. It refreshes the pathways identified in the earlier SCD to reflect underlying structural constraints as well as emerging impediments to development now in the foreground
the pathways to development are: (1) increased economic opportunities
(2) maximizing human capital and its economic returns
and (3) building more resilient incomes and livelihoods. As the PIC-9 SCD update shows, while each country is unique, there are common challenges across the region. Moreover, development priorities cannot be viewed in isolation - they are largely interconnected, with progress in one area depending on progress in many others.