Abstract:
For centuries, people of the Micronesian islands provided very well for themselves through a subsistence economy. Even today, traditional skills associated with subsistence farming and fishing provide an important backstop as the country becomes more reliant on a money economy to cope with the demands of an increasing population that is no longer isolated from the outside world. From the early 1960s, the United States, as the then UN Trustee, began a process of developing the islands' political and physical infrastructure aimed at moving them towards eventual self-government and greater self-sufficiency in the context of the wide world.