Solomon Islands and the Asian Development Bank have signed a $AU44 million grant to repair and climate proof infrastructure, national broadcaster Radio Happy Isles, announced on July 5.
The government-run radio report said the grant is to help restore vital transport links destroyed by the 2010 floods in central Solomon Islands.
News of the grant came just five days after Australia’s Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Affairs, MP Richard Marles, was in Honiara chairing the fifth meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Standing Committee on RAMSI, (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands).
“RAMSI is a success story for the region, and today’s meeting was an important opportunity to discuss its achievements and future work,” Mr Marles said, in a joint media release with Parliamentary Secretary of Defence, Senator David Feeney.
Mr Feeney added, “It is important that this significant progress continues and is sustained through the current transition phase.”
Representatives from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, RAMSI and the Forum Secretariat, welcomed the progress made by RAMSI.
Since 2008, RAMSI has trained more than 2,000 public servants and with help of advisers, the Solomon Islands government doubled internal revenue collection between 2007 and 2010. The telephone market has also been opened to competition cutting call costs by nearly half, the press release says.
Also to be reduced are the timelines and milestones within the partnership framework of RAMSI’s work plan.
Mr Marles said RAMSI was never intended to be in Solomon Islands permanently, however, Australia will remain committed “to assist achieve a stable and prosperous future, both through RAMSI as it transitions, and our strong bilateral relationships,” he said.
Just two days prior to the meeting, Mr Marles announced a $6 million boost over 18 months to support teacher training, improve literacy and numeracy, and teaching resources for schools, bringing a new total for 2010 to $13 million, he said.
The return of law and order to the Solomon Islands, the improvements to the economy – such as increased international investment and improved revenue – and the improvements in the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) were key changes since 2003, the official RAMSI website says.
RAMSI’s Deputy Special Coordinator, Mary Thurston, herself a former teacher, said that confidence was returning to Solomon Islands.
“Solomon Islands of 2011 is a very different nation from 2003,” Ms Thurston said. “There is more confidence in the country, the government and its institutions.”
Turning to the topic of RAMSI’s ‘transition’: the drawing down of RAMSI’s resources from Solomon Islands, Ms Thurston said: “RAMSI has changed as Solomon Islands and its needs have changed.
”This change will continue,”she said. “You may begin to see a little less of us… but that does not mean that RAMSI is leaving. We will still be here. ‘Transition’ is about giving Solomon Islanders more space to step up and take more of the lead.”
Ms Thurston also said that the group – teachers from schools throughout Honiara – had a vital role to play in this process.
Since 1999, the once peaceful Pacific Island nation has been besieged by tribal unrest, political turmoil and violent riots, which in 2003 led to the creation of RAMSI, a partnership between 15 Pacific countries and Solomon Islands.
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