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Solomon Islands

Five lessons in infrastructure pricing from East Asia and Pacific

Melania Lotti's picture
Photo: © Dini Sari Djalal/World Bank

In the infrastructure domain, “price” is a prism with many façades.
 
An infrastructure economist sees price in graphic terms: the coordinates of a point where demand and supply curves intersect.
 
For governments, price relates to budget lines, as part of public spending to develop infrastructure networks.
 
Utility managers view price as a decision: the amount to charge for each unit of service in order to recover the costs of production and (possibly) earn a profit.
 
But for most people, price comes with simple question: how much is the tariff I have to pay for the service, and can I afford it?

Untuk menggali potensi siswa, tuntut dan dukunglah guru

Michael Crawford's picture
Also available in: English

Di antara 29 negara dan ekonomi kawasan Asia Timur dan Pasifik, kita bisa menemukan beberapa sistem pendidikan paling sukses di dunia. Tujuh dari sepuluh pencetak rata-rata nilai tertinggi pada tes yang dapat dibandingkan secara internasional seperti PISA dan TIMSS berasal dari kawasan tersebut, di mana Jepang, Korea Selatan, Singapura, dan Hong Kong, Tiongkok secara konsisten selalu berada di antara yang terbaik.
 
Namun, yang lebih penting, kita juga menemukan bahwa kinerja yang hebat tidak terbatas pada sistem sekolah di negara-negara berpenghasilan tinggi kawasan ini. Sistem sekolah di negara berpenghasilan menengah seperti Vietnam dan Tiongkok (khususnya provinsi di Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, dan Guangdong), meskipun memiliki PDB per kapita yang jauh lebih rendah, memiliki nilai lebih baik daripada rata-rata negara OECD. Terlebih lagi, nilai dari Tiongkok dan Vietnam menunjukkan bahwa kinerja siswa miskin tidak tertinggal. Siswa dari kuintil berpenghasilan terendah kedua memiliki skor lebih baik daripada rata-rata siswa OECD, bahkan peserta tes paling miskin pun mengungguli siswa dari beberapa negara makmur. Namun demikian, seperti ditunjukkan grafik di bawah, negara-negara lain di kawasan ini belum mencapai hasil yang sama.

To unlock student potential in East Asia Pacific, be demanding and supportive of teachers

Michael Crawford's picture
Also available in: Bahasa Indonesia

Among the 29 countries and economies of the East Asia and Pacific region, one finds some of the world’s most successful education systems. Seven out of the top 10 highest average scorers on internationally comparable tests such as PISA and TIMSS are from the region, with Japan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong (China) consistently among the best. 

But, more significantly, one also finds that great performance is not limited to school systems in the region’s high-income countries. School systems in middle-income Vietnam and China (specifically the provinces of Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong) score better than the average OECD country, despite having much lower GDP per capita. What is more, scores from both China and Vietnam show that poor students are not being left behind. Students from the second-lowest income quintile score better than the average OECD student, and even the very poorest test takers outscore students from some wealthy countries. As the graph below shows, however, other countries in the region have yet to achieve similar results.

Are we there yet? – A journey towards sustainable flood risk management in Pacific Island countries

Simone Esler's picture
The Mataniko River floodplain at Koa Hill, Solomon Islands, after the April 2014 flood. Many houses were completely washed away and several lives were lost. (Photo: Alan McNeil, Solomon Islands government)

 

‘Are we there yet?’ On a long road trip, perhaps you’ve asked or heard this question.

Let’s direct this question to the state of urban flood risk management in Pacific Island countries.  In this case, the ‘destination’ is flood-resilient communities.

For Pacific Island countries, no, we’re not there yet, but are we heading in the right direction?

Women play a part to bring peace in Solomon Islands

Sophie Egden's picture
Margaret Wete, first female Village Peace Warden in Makira Province, Solomon Islands。 Photo: Ministry of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening

In a hot and crowded school classroom in December 2015 I sat excitedly watching Margaret Wete accept her role as Village Peace Warden for Waimasi and neighbouring villages in Makira/Ulawa Province, Solomon Islands. She was the first woman to be elected into this role by her community and I took it as a positive sign that the majority of those present for the vote were young women and men, making an important decision for the community’s future and putting their faith in a fellow young person. 

At the end of “the tensions”, a civil war in Solomon Islands which lasted from 1998 to 2003, peace was something not many people could picture. The government requested, and received, support from the region and 14 years of RAMSI – the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands – ensued.

How do we achieve sustained growth? Through human capital, and East Asia and the Pacific proves it

Michael Crawford's picture
Students at Beijing Bayi High School in China. Photo: World Bank


In 1950, the average working-age person in the world had  almost three years of education, but in East Asia and Pacific (EAP), the  average person had less than half that amount. Around this time, countries in  the EAP  region put themselves on a path that focused on growth  driven by human capital. They made significant and steady investments in  schooling to close the educational attainment gap with the rest of the world. While  improving their school systems, they also put their human capital to work in  labor markets. As a result, economic growth has been stellar: for four decades  EAP has grown at roughly twice the pace of the global average. What is more, no  slowdown is in sight for rising prosperity.

High economic growth and strong human capital accumulation  are deeply intertwined. In a recent paper, Daron Acemoglu and David Autor explore  the way skills and labor markets interact: Human capital is the central  determinant of economic growth and is the main—and very likely the only—means  to achieve shared growth when technology is changing quickly and raising the  demand for skills. Skills promote productivity and growth, but if there are not  enough skilled workers, growth soon chokes off. If, by contrast, skills are abundant and  average skill-levels keep rising, technological change can drive productivity  and growth without stoking inequality.

Ending a 20-year water crisis in a remote village in Solomon Islands

Evan Wasuka's picture
Surrounded by water, Nanngu’s taps have been without drinking water for the past 20 years.

With the throttle at full tilt, the boat cut through the surf, spraying salt water into the air. 
Around me, the unfolding scenery is breathtaking. White sandy beaches, turquoise blue seas, swaying coconut palms – the textbook image of paradise in the South Pacific.
 
What more could one ask for in paradise?  

Water, is what they will tell you. “They” are the people of Nanngu Village on the island of Santa Cruz in the far east of Solomon Islands. 
 
Out here, water to drink, cook food with, wash and keep clean is hard to come by.
 
The last time they had proper running water was 20 years ago. That came to an end at the hands of a Category Three cyclone, Nina, which hit the islands in 1993.
 
As I write this, we’re on our way to Nanngu to see a new World Bank-supported project bringing water to the village.

On International Women’s Day, 5 facts about gender and the law in the Pacific Islands

Katrin Schulz's picture




There is a lot that development practitioners don’t know about the Pacific Islands. When it comes to the laws of these small island nations scattered throughout the ocean separating Asia and the Americas, most people outside the region know even less. Add the dimension of gender to the mix and you might be met with blank stares.

Solomon Islanders rising up Jacob’s Ladder of opportunity

Evan Wasuka's picture



Geographically, the capital of Solomon Islands, Honiara, is a hilly city, a maze of ridges and valleys.

In front of me, concrete steps descend 30 meters down the face of a ridge, winding their way down in a gravity-defying manner; nothing else stands on the slope, it’s simply too steep.

The steps are part of a system of footpaths that link communities of thousands of people below to the main public road above.

Over the past 60 years as Honiara has developed, so too have informal settlements. These are often located at the bottom of steep valleys without basic services such as roads, water and electricity.

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