Kiribati 

Introduction

The Republic of Kiribati is a unitary state situated at the equator in the Pacific Ocean, with a population of 92,000 on 30 islands covering a total land area of 811 sq km scattered over 3.5 million sq km of ocean. 

Anote Tong, won the presidential election in October 2007 and was sworn in for a second term.

Kiribati has five administrative districts - northern, central, south-eastern, south-western and the morthern line islands. Local government is established on all inhabited islands, with one town council, two urban councils and 18 island councils in all.

The contribution of local government to GDP in 2003 was about 3.3 per cent.

Summary

There is a closely knit system of governance with members of parliament being ex officio members of the local councils. Kiribati local government has a wide variety of responsibilities.

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