about us
Talanoa Consulting is a small, multi-disciplinary consultancy firm based in Suva, serving Fiji and the Pacific Islands.
Firmly rooted in Fiji, and weaving together local and international expertise, we provide a range of high-quality services across sectors.
We work in the areas of climate change, disaster risk reduction and resilience, agriculture and food security, gender equality and women’s economic empowerment, environmental conservation, natural resource management, and small business and social enterprise development, particularly tourism and agribusiness.
We provide expertise in research, social and economic analysis, project design and management, monitoring and evaluation, knowledge brokering, designing and implementing training and capacity development, workshop, conference and event facilitation.
We welcome new friends, projects and collaborators – if you’d like to connect, we’d love to hear from you.
[ta-la-no-aa]. verb. “a conversation, chat, sharing of ideas and talking with someone… formal, as between chiefs and his or her people, [or] informal, as between friends in a kava circle…. used to teach a skill, to share ideas, to preach, to resolve problems, to build and maintain relationships, and to gather information.”
– The Kakala Research Framework, Seu‘ula Johansson Fua
when we talanoa...
We listen. We don’t assume that we know. We listen to better understand your needs. We listen and build on your ideas for solutions.
We care. We’re idealistic and realistic – and we believe you can be both. We work on problems that we have the expertise to help solve. We don’t assume that we’re the right people and will always recommend others.
We reflect. We look back and learn from our past. We don’t reinvent the wheel. Many solutions already exist and can be refined and adapted to help solve today’s problems.
We question respectfully. Asking why can be powerful in understanding the root causes of an issue. But there are different ways of asking why. We hope we know when not to ask.
We translate. We try not to use development jargon that can alienate the very people development should empower.
our team
Our core team comprises three full time consultants and an office manager shared with our sister social enterprise, Talanoa Treks, with many years of public and private sector experience. As a natural extension to our team we connect to a network of experienced Fiji- and Pacific-based consultants.
As well as being experts in our fields, as a team we are fluent in development-speak, layman’s chat, fijian, hindi and welsh… our translation services help bridge the gap
kava & cappuccinos
from communities to conference rooms, our pacific-based team traverse the region's unique cultural context
We’re proud of our local context – and our team’s ability to navigate our region’s social and cultural frameworks, diverse, thriving relationships, and the complex layers of tradition and heritage. We don’t pretend to do this perfectly, but we will always be mindful of the context within which we work.
Based in Fiji, employment and consultancy projects have taken us across the Pacific Islands region including Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Niue, Nauru, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.