World Bank

Fiji welcomed this opportunity during the signing of the World Bank establishment agreement at the Prime Minister’s office Wednesday.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says Fiji is honoured to host the World Bank group.

Bainimarama says Fiji’s relationship with the World Bank is growing and its presence at home will benefit not only Fiji but neighbouring countries.

At a regional energy summit in Samoa, the World Bank said it was detailing the potential for its online solar atlas, which gives interested parties the means to find where solar power potential is most concentrated.

Water PNG Managing Director, Raka Taviri, said this when asked following the signing of a K223 million loan between the PNG Government and the World Bank for the roll our of water supply and sanitation program.

Taviri said the operation costs to provide clean an safe water is very high and though they operated in 21 centres around the country, only a few centres were profitable.

He said in order to sustain their operations they have developed a concept to enter into agreements with DDA’s.

Financial consumer protection ‘involves laws, regulations and institutional arrangements that safeguard consumers in the financial marketplace’, as defined by the World Bank.

According to the Second National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2016 – 2020, the Bank of Papua New Guinea will be taking the lead in developing the framework.

Development of the framework will focus on three areas. They are: Regulatory; Financial Service Providers; and Consumers.

Global Head of the World Bank’s Finance and Markets Global Practice, Simon Bell, says both policy interventions are bad legislations, which will affect the growth of SME’s.

Speaking during the SME Development Workshop in Port Moresby recently, Bell said many economies in their bid to boost their SME sectors, came up with bad legislations.

One view that the Reserved Businesses legislation is a bad intervention falls on the premise that employment will suffer and that the quality of service may drop.

The 11^th implementation support mission from November 17-21 was headed by World Bank agriculture specialist based in Vietnam, Nathan Belete; and Dan Vadnjal and Agnes Deshormes of IFAD.

They delegation met with coffee processing, exporting firms and NGO groups partnering in the coffee rehabilitation work in Eastern Highlands, Chimbu, Jiwaka and Western Highlands under call 1 and 2.

The objective of the mission was to assess the progress since the last assessment in March with focus on sustainability aspects when World Bank, IFAD and PNG Government funding ends.

The workshop, to be held next month, will focus on some of the recently released work programs for the SME sector undertaken by Department of Trade, Commerce and Industry, SME Corporation and other key stakeholders.

Presentations will be made by the World Bank group on international best practices and examples in SME development.

The workshop will provide invaluable information for developing appropriate government interventions and policies to foster the growth of SMEs in PNG.

The farmer group from one of the remote electorates referred to as the ‘back page’ of Eastern Highlands Province were praised for their efforts for having good leadership to organised cluster groups to successfully bid for coffee development funding totalling K2.3 million.

Epo spokesperson Moiu Koaru told Loop PNG this following the celebration of the final sealing of the Malalaua-Epo road in Gulf Province on Thursday.

Dekenai Construction Ltd started work on the 57km road in 2014, under project manager Jim Taparu, who is also from Gulf. Koaru stressed that based on the successful implementation of the project, it can be concluded that local contractors have a sense of ownership.

The series of films titled ‘The Price of Conflict, The Prospect of Peace,’ features ARoB, among two other communities in the Solomon islands and in the Philippines, affected by conflict.

The films aim to highlight how conflict continues to exact a heavy toll long after bloodshed and turmoil.

In ARoB, the film features women from rival communities torn apart by ethnic conflict, coming together to help halt the violence.