The Executive Director of New Zealand's new look aid organisation says it wants to know what are the poverty needs in the Pacific.
The New Zealand Agency for International Development, or NZAid, comes into existence at the beginning of next month, with a brief to focus on the alleviation or elimination of poverty.
Peter Adams says the trend in international thinking on how aid is allocated is to focus on poverty, and NZAid is now researching to isolate local definitions of poverty that are relevant.
Mr Adams says this could be the lack of basic needs, the poverty of opportunity, or vulnerability to poverty through such things as natural causes or poor government.
"so there are many ways in which poverty exists and can indeed be created even out of a non poverty situation... so it's a complex area but the point about it is that it gives us a sharp policy focus against which to set our strategies and measure our activities."
Peter Adams.