There is so much money sloshing around these days in Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, the stores are running short of goods and some locals are partying until dawn.
The region’s economy is buoyant thanks in part to good fortune – record high prices for cocoa – and a largely unknown Australian and New Zealand aid success story.
Nearly a decade ago, the two governments helped Bougainville’s cocoa farmers rehabilitate their plantations, some of which had gone to seed since the region was embroiled in a civil war in the 1990s.
