The head of the Pacific's NGO body says the region needs to look at new ways to measure a country's growth and development.
PIANGO's executive director Emele Duituturaga said the traditional hallmark of a nation's success is graduation from low to middle income status.
Ms Duituturaga said this does not take into account the increased inequality and poverty which middle income nations are experiencing.
"I guess the old measure of GDP, you know growth, as a measure of progress and development is to be questioned because you can have growth, yes economic growth but if you have rising inequalities and poverty, this is a major challenge," she said.
Emele Duituturaga said NGO's need to adapt from helping a traditional rural-poor in low income countries to a growing urban poor in middle-income ones.
Emele Duituturaga. Photo: supplied
