From the High Commissioner’s Desk – Rod Hilton

Last week at the Pacific Infrastructure Conference in Brisbane, Australia and Solomon Islands officially launched a new report, Building Together – five years of infrastructure partnership.

Building Together tells the story of a long and enduring partnership between our two great nations. It shows the impact of working together, with the Solomon Islands Government, provincial governments, and communities all around Solomon Islands to improve lives with well planned and well built infrastructure delivered by a majority Solomon Islands workforce.

As Solomon Islands’ nambawan infrastructure partner, it can sometimes be hard to visualise the impact that 515 infrastructure projects, delivered over the last five years, have had on the daily of life of people who are the focus of infrastructure.

From the big to the small, the SBD1.1 Coral Sea Cable bringing faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet to Solomon Islands, to a small community hall in Isabel.

Each asset is a tool to help drive change. Schools to teach children about their world, clinics to improve family health, and roads, bridges, ports, jetties and airfields to connect Solomon Islanders to each other and economic opportunity.

While Building Together tells the story of the huge number of things we have built together, touching every province, the report is really about ‘how’ we’ve built together.

Australia has committed our very best efforts and resources to supporting the delivery of meaningful infrastructure to Solomon Islanders – with connectivity, resilience and quality as the foundation for women, men and children to build a better life and move the nation forward.

We’ve increased the number of local companies and workers delivering Australian- funded projects. Through CAUSE I and II other projects, this has created work for over 10,500 people including women and people with disabilities. We’re also working with government to better plan, manage and maintain infrastructure, and with industry to upskill worksite safety, project management and tendering.

At the launch of Building Together, Minister Fuo’o emphasised that Solomon Islands’ infrastructure partners must focus on local content – using Solomon Islands companies and suppliers to deliver infrastructure that can be more easily maintained and operated, and build the capacity of the local construction sector to deliver larger projects.

Building Together is a testament to Australia’s 100 percent commitment to this policy. A few weeks ago, I celebrated with nearly 200 Solomon Islands workers who have now completed major structural works at the new Naha Birthing and Urban Health Centre. That’s 200 people, supporting 200 families or more, with a great income and gaining valuable experience.

The Naha Birthing and Urban Health Centre will have a huge impact on safer birthing outcomes, and quality family health care – but it is already having an impact on Solomon Islands workers.

Around Honiara and Malaita, road improvements are rapidly being rolled out under Australia’s SDB 60 million contribution to the National Transport Fund, providing plenty of work for local companies and creating jobs, which is always our key priority.

These are the impacts and the stories that Australians take great pride in supporting. As we turn to the next five years, Australia will continue to adapt and align to national priorities, with an ever increasing emphasis on economic and productive infrastructure, and maximising local content to provide people around the country
with the opportunities to improve their lives, and their country.

There are also lessons about how to plan and design smarter — getting behind the place-based approach of the Solomon Islands National Infrastructure Priority Pipeline 2023 and the New National Building Code — to designing for climate change, reduced energy consumption and the maintenance of the assets once handed over to asset owners to operate and maintain.

These are just some of the achievements and lessons we have forged together over the last five years, working shoulder to shoulder with government, industry and hard working individuals in every province to deliver over $5 billion in infrastructure as Solomon Islands’ largest and longest-serving development partner.

Copies of Building Together – five years of infrastructure partnership between Solomon Islands and Australia can be downloaded from Australia’s Solomon Islands Infrastructure Program website: www.siip.com.sb/publications.

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