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Asian Development Bank member fact sheet. ADB assistance to Samoa supports improvements in the delivery of basic social services, and provision of safer and more efficient road and maritime transportation, better internet connectivity, and effective disaster relief.

Economic growth and investment in infrastructure go hand in hand. A growing economy needs constantly improved infrastructure to ensure that the production and exchange of goods and services happens as smoothly and efficiently as possible

A rapidly growing population, poor human development indicators, and climate change risk exposure demand a public investment policy that is effective so as to ensure the sustainable growth and development of the Solomon Islands

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at the heart of its implementation with its promise to “leave no one behind”.

This handbook serves as a guide to the applications, technologies, business models, and regulations that should be considered when evaluating the feasibility of a battery energy storage system (BESS) project.

The Asia and Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unabated warming could significantly undo previous achievements of economic development and improvements of living standards. At the same time, the region has both the economic capacity and weight of influence to change the present fossil-fuel based development pathway and curb global emissions. This report sheds light on the regional implications of the latest projections of changes in climate conditions over Asia and the Pacific. The assessment concludes that, even under the Paris consensus scenario in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels, some of the land area, ecosystems, and socioeconomic sectors will be significantly affected by climate change impacts, to which policy makers and the investment community need to adapt to. However, under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, which will cause a global mean temperature rise of over 4°C by the end of this century, the possibilities for adaptation are drastically reduced. Among others, climate change impacts such as the deterioration of the Asian “water towers”, prolonged heat waves, coastal sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns could disrupt ecosystem services and lead to severe effects on livelihoods which in turn would affect human health, migration dynamics and the potential for conflicts. This assessment also underlines that, for many areas vital to the region’s economy, research on the effects of climate change is still lacking.

Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu. The Port Vila Urban Area (PVUA), defined as the Port Vila Municipality (PVM) and adjoining peri-urban areas, has a population of about 70,000. About 49,300 of these people live in PVM. Per capita gross national income in Vanuatu was approximately 279,402 vatu (Vt) (around $3,073) in 2011.

The Asian Development Bank through its contractor, the Snowy Mountain Engineering.Corporation were tasked with exploring the potential of augmenting the capacity of the Afulilo Reservoir to power a third turbine at the Ta’elafaga Hydro-power Station. To assist in this augmentation assessment, SMEC arranged with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program to oversight a consortium of partners to conduct a 11 month monitoring program with the purpose of assessing the status of the marine environment, particularly the coral reefs, as well as water quality in the Fagaloa and Uafato Bays. The data from the 2009-1010 marine monitoring program implies that several sites in Fagaloa Bay are exhibiting signs of various impacts from various inputs into the marine environment, which are most notable at sites 1, 2, and 14. These sites are closest to the apex of Fagaloa Bay where the Ta’elefaga Creek discharges into. Impacts for these sites include low or no coral cover and recruitment, growth in algal cover, lower salinity levels, higher rates of sedimentation and turbidity, as well as high nutrient inputs. Fish biomass at site 14 was also the lowest (sites 1 and 2 were not surveyed due to poor visibility). Other specific results across all sites include a reduction in live coral cover, a general shift to more hardier coral species, and low fish bio-mass when compared with other sites in Samoa.

The Pacific Islands region is located in the western and central Pacific Ocean. The 15 Independent countries and eight territories that make up this region are delineated into three major culture areas, these are Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia (Table 1) and have a combined Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of approximately 29 million km