Rohorua, Frederick Isom2026-02-252026-02-252005-091175-3099https://hdl.handle.net/10289/17962It is argued here that independent Solomon Islands was poorly prepared for the development tasks that lay ahead. That argument is based on the nature of the last two development plans produced for the British Solomon Islands Protectorate before the departure of the British. The failure of the British to take development planning seriously left the newly independent country with a range of problems that even very experienced politicians and administrators would have found extremely difficult to address adequately. As there can be little doubt that the later outbreak of ethnic tension related, in part at least, to the perception that development activities had had little effect on the lives of Solomon Islanders (particularly rural Solomon Islanders), it follows that responsibility rests not only with Solomon Islanders themselves, but also with the British.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Development studiesColonialism in the PacificSolomon Islands developmentJournal Article10.15663/K10.141033021-5668