Understanding the neighbourhood: Bougainville's referendum for independence.

This paper addresses the proposed referendum in relation to the future of Bougainville, which was agreed—as part of the 2001 Bougainville peace agreement—would be held between 2015 and 2020. It uses the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's 'Security System Reform framework' to analyse relevant governance, security, justice and economic issues in order to identify how the preparation, conduct and management of the aftermath of the referendum can be shaped for success.

The paper concludes that insufficient progress has been made in setting the conditions for a successful referendum and that, if significant work is not undertaken to rectify this situation, the referendum is doomed to fail before it begins. Importantly, such failure would not only impact PNG and Bougainville but has implications for the entire South Pacific region. Accordingly, the paper asserts that key regional players urgently need to become pro-actively involved in shaping the prospects for a successful referendum.

This paper was also published in the Indo-Pacific Strategic Digest series.

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