Mobile money creates opportunities in PNG

PNG is a place of great complexity, with a development landscape littered with failed efforts. The potential for mobile money is often expressed in terms of financial inclusion, but there is also potential to improve development and governance.

Morrison’s Pacific pivot

The Prime Minister has outlined a practical and imaginative new strategy on issues critical to our region’s security, prosperity and people-to-people connections.

Why Australia’s aid is a key soft-power asset

An expanded program to reduce poverty and encourage human development in our region would multiply the positive outcomes of Australian aid and improve Australia’s standing and influence in the world.

Low-cost tsunami warning system could help protect Pacific islanders

A simple and low cost early warning system could help prevent deaths in regions vulnerable to tsunamis after successful trials in Vanuatu last month.

Shorten proposes investment bank to help Pacific nations’ development

Bill Shorten has hinted that Labor would set up a government-backed infrastructure investment bank to promote concessional financing for nation-building projects in the Pacific.

Connectivity is about people rather than technology

People in the Pacific have connected across its vast expanse for millennia, and new digital cables will help bring people together to create ‘One Pacific’ over time, strengthening traditional ties and human relationships rather than replacing them.

Australia steps up its Pacific pivot

Australian strategic interest in the Pacific islands is reaching heights not seen since the international intervention in the Solomon Islands in 2003, thanks to increased concern about China’s growing presence in the region.

Turning the cybersecurity spotlight on the Pacific

A digital tsunami is engulfing the Pacific. Undersea cables are gradually bringing high-speed internet connections, with all its thrills and risks, to remote island nations. This new connectivity brings a host of opportunities, but care must be taken to guard against risks too.

Youth empowerment for social good: Samoan start-up seeks to digitally revolutionise education

A young Samoan entrepreneur with a passion for education and technology, Olisana Mariner, talks about her recent visit to Sydney to participate in the Pacific Connect Forum and a mentoring session at Stone & Chalk, Asia’s largest fintech start-up hub.

Passports remain a ticket to corruption in the Pacific Islands

Pacific island countries have sold passports to foreigners since the early 1980s and new ventures to raise revenue risk undermining the region’s domestic probity and international security.

Youth Co:Lab Samoa continues to thrive

The Samoa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with the UN Development Program, hosted the first ever Youth Co:Lab Samoa Workshop in the Pacific region.  Twenty young Samoans with a passion for social innovation and entrepreneurship were part of this inaugural program.

Digital connectivity to boost educational opportunities in the Solomon Islands

Education and training are of fundamental importance to the use of cable connectivity and the future of the Solomon Islands. Benjamin Blackshaw reports from the Pacific Connect workshop in Honiara.