Finding Balance 2011: Benchmarking the Performance of State-Owned Enterprises in Fiji, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Tonga Volume II: Comparative Review of the Legal, Governance and Monitoring Frameworks ; Finding Balance ; 2

This report examines the legal, governance and monitoring frameworks supporting the stateowned enterprise (SOE) sectors in Fiji, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga. The frameworks guide the operations of the SOEs and enable their shareholders to monitor performance. The comparative analysis reveals that robust SOE frameworks, while being important in ensuring strong SOE performance, are only fully effective when there is political commitment to ensure that they are fully implemented. Where the frameworks are incomplete or inadequately implemented, SOE performance suffers. This is illustrated in the case of these five Pacific island countries, as well as in many other countries around the world.