The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is considering pumping in further USD300million into Solomon Islands for the next four years to support existing and new projects it funds.

This was revealed Emma Veve – the Director General of the Pacific Department within the ADB office based in Manila, Philippines.

She was in Honiara fortnight ago to see some of the existing projects which are being co-financed and fully funded by ADB.

Ms Veve who took up the top role in February told the Solomon Star in an exclusive that Solomon Islands remains the second largest beneficiaries of ADB support.

“Solomon Islands is now our second largest portfolio in the Pacific. That’s a bit surprising for many people.”

She highlighted, the total value of what ADB is doing in the Solomon Islands now is about 360 million US dollars – SBD3billion. 

Ms Veve explained that the current US360m is the amount that was already approved for projects that are happening on the ground now. Some of these projects are the Solomon Water upgrade and Honiara road project from Honiara City Council to White River.

“And we’re looking at putting around about another US300 (SBD2.5billion) million approximately over this next four-year cycle. So that’s from 2025 to 2028.

“And some of that will involve co-financing from other partners,” she said.

Ms Veve who is an Australian highlighted some of that US360 million worth of current activities will of course finish up during period – 25 to 28. 

She added, ADB expects some slight growth in the investment portfolio size in the country. 

There is good news that there are future projects for Solomon Island that are in the pipeline

“Interesting projects are coming up in the Solomon Islands and some of it is more financing for things that we’re doing. 

“For the Tina River Hydro project, some more financing into that,” she added. 

For the third tranche of the Land and Maritime project, ADB expects to release some funds which will be the final stage of this activity, she said.

Ms Veve also highlighted that ABD continues to do work around budget support for the country.

The bank is also looking at using some new mechanisms like project readiness facilities for the transport sector, which help to do the detailed design for projects before they’re actually approved by the board and rolled out, she added. 

“So that the country has a detailed design for whatever form of transport we decide with government to do, that even if we didn’t finance it, it would be ready for someone else to finance and government to carry on.

“And that really helps move projects a bit more quickly,” she said. 

There are some planned work coming up around sustainable tourism and wetland preservation, she added. 

“I think our agriculture and natural resources team, which until a sort of an internal restructure we had, really were not active in the Pacific, are becoming a lot more active and finding lots of opportunities to engage.

“And we’re also looking at doing some work around micro-finance and financial resilience, so working more at the community level about access to finance,” she said. 

She explained some of these projects are being guided by discussions with government. 

“So it’s very much government-led.”

Meanwhile, ADB is planning to upgrade its Honiara Pacific Coordination Office later this year into a resident mission.

This was approved by the ADB Board couple of months ago, Ms Veve confirmed this. 

“The Pacific Coordination Office will be upgraded to what we call a resident mission.

“So that means there’ll be a country director starting here a bit later in the year.

“So in the ADB system, it will really lift the status of the operations in the Solomon Islands. 

“And you’ll have a much louder voice in the Pacific Department to argue for resources, et cetera, for what’s happening here,” she said.

During her visit to Honiara recently she had been speaking with the eight staff at the ADB Honiara office about what’s going to happen with the office space and what kind of numbers of new people they can be expecting.

“And we’ll look forward to launching that later in the year, 

hopefully, when our president comes to visit,” the ADB Pacific Department Chief said. 

By MOFFAT MAMU