CLIMATE change and growing the private remains two of the pressing issues affecting the Pacific region.
Thats according to Emma Veve Director General (DG) of the Pacific Department within the Asian Development Bank (ADB) during an interview with the Solomon Star early this week.
She is currently on a five day visit to Honiara, arriving on Monday and due to leave on Friday.
“One of top pressing issues that affect the Pacific region now, I would say is changing climate pattern and its negative impacts.
“You know, we see impacts from sea level rise encroaching on coastal infrastructure.
“We see changing weather patterns leading to changes in flooding, more experience of droughts.
“Farming communities need to think about when they’re planting and what they’re planting and how these factors are affecting them.
“So, it impacts all different areas of people’s lives,” she said.
Ms Veve who was appointed to the top job in February this year added, the other major challenge impacting the region is the dependency by the population on the government to support its economy.
“Because of the relatively small populations, everyone depends on their governments to drive the economy and provide services.
“That’s very different than most other places in the world where it’s a private sector driving the economy.”
So helping the private sector in the Pacific grow is a real challenge that ADB, other partners and obviously governments have been grappling with for a long time.
“And it’s an area where we’re increasingly working on,” Ms Veve, from Australia said.
To address that challenge, ADB is working with both the government and the private sector.
“The bank is quite different in that we have our what we call sovereign operations.
“So, the part of us that work with governments, as well as our private sector operations who lend to the private sector under one umbrella.
“So we’re working increasingly closer together. We have people from the private sector side sitting in Papua New Guinea, in Fiji and Sydney working across the region now.

“So I’m seeing more things happening on that side but still needs a lot more to make sure that the reforms that government are doing to enable the private sector to operate more freely are actually turning into real investments and hence jobs for people and more choices for people,“ she said.

By MOFFAT MAMU