China Group Leases Solomon Islands Provincial Capital

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Central  Province has agreed to lease on long term the whole island of Tulagi to Chinese firm China Sam Enterprise Group Ltd to be developed into a “Special Economic Zone”.
Premier Stanley Manetiva signed the agreement with Sam Group reps in Honiara last month.
The agreement also mentioned lease of islands surrounding Tulagi to the Chinese firm.
Sam Group prides itself as one of China’s top hi-tech investors.

How the Pacific is Measuring Up, and whether we could do more

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Henry Cooke in New York reports  that five Pacific states are reporting to the UN on their sustainable development goals (SDG), measured by 17 goals and 230 statistical indicators, this week.

He notes that most Pacific Islands lack the resources to measure the indicators, and that there are far too many indicators. As a result, a Pacific SDG task force has limited the indicators to 132 but even then Niue will report on only 38 indicators, Cook Islands on 45,  Samoa on 60 and Tonga on 61. Included in the others, not reporting this week, is Fiji with the largest number of indicators, but even this relatively developed country has insufficient statistical information  on education and none on safe water supply.

"Development" in Port Moreby

A company with links to a politician from Southern Highlands has issued a 21-day eviction notice to more than 3,500 

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residents of a proposed suburb in Port Moresby*. 

The proposed eviction at 8-Mile in Moresby North East would also affect about 300 public servants and private sector employees, 1,000 school children, two schools and five Christian churches. 

The eviction could also set back plans to develop all settlements in the National Capital District into modern suburbs with basic amenities such as water supply, sewerage and waste managements systems, roads and electricity.

8 Mile, as the name implies, is  8 miles from Port Moresby itself, and home to about 15,000 of NCD's 250,000 residents. The settlement was established on vacant government land by rural migrants from the country’s Highlands region in the late 1970s and today provides housing for squatters and the better off in housing estates. According to some estimates, NCD's population will exceed more than half a million by 2020 with half of these living in squatter settlements.  

Conditions in another closer to Port Moresby can be guessed from its name: 4-mile Rubbish, built next to a rubbish dump, a rich source of its housing material.

Life for the poor at 8 Mile is harsh in every sense of the word. Jobs are non-existent, their dwellings are rudimentary and their part of the settlement lacks basic services. They have no official supplies of water and electricity, and there is no sewerage.

While some residents have low-paying jobs in Port Moresby, most are forced to eke out an existence growing vegetables and selling what is not consumed by their families, at road-side stalls. Substance abuse, violence and petty crime are commonplace, a product of the endemic poverty that has blighted this and other Port Moresby squatter settlements for decades.

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* Loosely used 'Port Moresby' refers to all land within the National Capital District.