The World Bank In Pacific Islands

The World Bank’s Pacific Island member countries (The Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu – for Papua New Guinea see this page) have a combined population of about 2.3 million people, spread over an area equivalent to 15 percent of the Earth’s surface. The populations in these countries are small, ranging in size from 12,000 (in Tuvalu and in Nauru) to about 900,000 in Fiji.

Pacific Island countries have substantial natural resources and extraordinary linguistic and cultural diversity. They are also among the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change and natural disasters.

Last updated: April 2025

Working in partnership across the region, the World Bank is currently supporting 91 active projects in 11 Pacific Island countries including Papua New Guinea, totaling US$3.2 billion in commitments through financing from the World Bank, trust funds, and co-financing.

Download Our Work in the Pacific & PNG (March 2025), the guide to the World Bank’s work across the Pacific. It includes a map of the Bank’s work across the Pacific and program break-downs by country. (888 kb PDF file)

The World Bank’s work in Fiji,  Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea is guided by individual country strategies. A subregional hub office in Suva serves the South Pacific countries of Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu; a subregional hub office in Pohnpei serves the North Pacific countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.

The Bank’s support to the Pacific Islands increased rapidly over the past decade, with a 50 percent increase in staff across the region and a seven-fold increase in World Bank–supported projects since 2014. This work has been driven by significant increases in support from both the International Development Association (IDA) and the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD).

The World Bank's work in the Pacific and Papua New Guinea is also supported by the Australian and New Zealand governments, through the PNG and the Pacific Islands Umbrella Facility (PPIUF).

The 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, endorsed by Pacific Islands Forum Leaders, is a strong Pacific-led development strategy for the region, and the World Bank will be supporting the region in translating the Strategy into action. It informs the Bank’s actions in the Pacific, deepening the growing partnership between the World Bank and the Pacific, and leading to direct results for Pacific people.

Focus Sectors

The World Bank is leading a regional initiative to maintain uninterrupted access to the global financial system for Pacific nations through a project to strengthen correspondent banking relationships. The project will benefit Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, and one regional organization, the Pacific Islands Forum. World Bank Group President Ajay Banga announced the project during his first trip to the region in August 2024. It promotes a regional approach and is designed as a platform allowing more Pacific countries to join and for bilateral and multilateral donors to participate.

Digital development is vital for connecting people, especially in the geographically dispersed Pacific Island countries. The Pacific Regional Connectivity Program is making internet connections faster, cheaper, and more reliable, including to outer islands. World Bank support is also strengthening the digital regulatory environment and helping governments deliver digital services.

Access to employment and jobs is critical in many Pacific countries, because of high population growth and unemployment. In Solomon Islands, the Community Access and Urban Services Enhancement Project and its second phase are providing job training, employment opportunities, and short-term income for nearly 20,000 people while building essential community infrastructure.

In the energy sector, the World Bank is working with the governments of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands to make electricity supplies more reliable and efficient and to scale up renewable energy generation. It is supporting the Tina River Hydro Development Project in Solomon Islands and investments in grid-connected solar.

The sustainable management of the environment and natural resources across the Pacific is vital to the region’s future. The Pacific Islands Regional Oceanscape Program is helping Pacific countries and the regional Forum Fisheries Agency coordinate the sustainable management of tuna fisheries, ensuring that they can sustainably manage their coastal fisheries and critical habitats while maximizing economic returns.

The World Bank is improving systems for analysis, budgeting, management, and monitoring of health services, with a focus on strengthening primary health care. Support to the Marshall Islands includes investments in maternal and child health, early childhood stimulation, and preschool services. The Samoa Health System Strengthening Program is improving access to health care in rural areas. In Solomon Islands, World Bank support is improving medical transport systems by ensuring that more boats and vehicles get to people where they are needed. Similar support in Fiji is helping improve the digital connectivity of doctors, nurses, and health centers.

Projects across the region are helping strengthen countries’ fiscal, social, and physical resilience to climate change and natural disasters. The Pacific Resilience Program is helping the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu build early warning systems, strengthen disaster policies and community resilience, and obtain rapid access to finance after a disaster.

Transport in the Pacific Islands region is essential to connect people to markets, schools, hospitals, and families, often over vast distances of ocean. Projects to build the resilience of key roads, bridges, ports, and other transport infrastructure in the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Samoa,  Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu aim to better connect communities, including those in remote and outer island communities, while protecting infrastructure against the impacts of climate change.

A dedicated aviation program has delivered major reconstruction works to airports and runways in Kiribati, Samoa,  Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, helping make air travel safer and more efficient across the Pacific. The Bank is helping Fiji boost tourism opportunities and infrastructure on Vanua Levu, the country’s second-largest island, and supporting maritime transport through the Fiji Transport Infrastructure Investment Project.

Through budget support and Development Policy Operations, the World Bank is supporting economic reform programs that have provided immediate cash disbursements following emergencies. It is helping  drive reforms that will build more fiscal and economic resilience.

Analytical reports are helping lay the foundations for Pacific governments to make better-informed policy decisions. They include Public Expenditure Reviews, Country Economic Memorandums, Country Private Sector Development Reports, and Poverty Assessments, as well as the twice-yearly Pacific Economic Update.

Last updated: April 2025

In December 2024, the World Bank responded to Vanuatu’s devastating 7.3-level earthquake within days, providing US$12 million in emergency grant assistance. This assistance was delivered through an element of the World Bank’s new Crisis Preparedness and Response Toolkit – which the Pacific region has been at the forefront of implementing due to the region’s unique vulnerabilities. In January, The World Bank also provided Vanuatu with US$30 million in grants to help the island recovery and to strengthen disaster response..

The Pacific Resilience Program has provided extensive disaster response training for government staff and supported the construction of two new emergency operations centers in Tonga. These centers were critical to the immediate response to the January 2022 volcano and tsunami, keeping remote locations in contact with the government and communicating where support was needed most.

Following the volcano and subsequent tsunami, the World Bank provided an immediate US$8 million in funding to support Tonga’s most urgent response needs. Similar disaster support was delivered to other Pacific Island countries, including Tuvalu (Cyclone Tino, 2020); Samoa (measles outbreak, 2019); Tonga (Cyclone Harold, 2020); and Vanuatu (Cyclone Harold, 2020 and Cyclones Judy and Kevin, 2023) to support urgent response and recovery.

Longer-term World Bank support in Tonga has helped upgrade and reconstruct critical infrastructure, including more than 125 classrooms, improved early warning systems, and helped rebuild transport infrastructure in Tongatapu and ‘Eua. In Kiribati, a World Bank program is working with communities to better prepare them for the impacts of climate change, including by building rainwater tanks for remote communities, as sea-level rise and drought have left many drinking wells contaminated.

Recent World Bank programs have supported important reforms to help Pacific countries build greater economic and fiscal resilience. They include debt and financial management reforms in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands,  Solomon Islands, and Tonga, as well as support for the establishment of a new Independent Commission against Corruption in Solomon Islands.

In Fiji, the World Bank helped the government prepare a comprehensive assessment of the country’s vulnerability to climate change and helped it issue the first ever green bond from a developing country, raising US$50 million for climate resilience in the process.

The Pacific Regional Connectivity Project is reducing the cost and increasing the availability of information and communications technology services needed to support social and economic development in the Pacific. Fiber-optic cables have been connected in Fiji, Samoa, Palau, Tonga, and Tuvalu, improving service quality and reducing costs. In Tonga, for example, the first phase of this work increased broadband access from 2 percent of the population in 2010 to 64 percent in 2021 and reduced the average retail cost of broadband internet by 97 percent.

Energy projects are having a considerable impact in the Pacific. A renewable energy project in Solomon Islands is delivering 2,400 new electricity connections to low-income families and supporting community infrastructure and microenterprises in urban and rural areas. The Tina River Hydropower Project in Solomon Islands will reduce the country’s near-total reliance on imported fuel. The country has some of the highest electricity costs in the world, a major roadblock to growth and poverty reduction. The Community Access and Urban Services Enhancement Project (CAUSE) and its predecessor, the Rapid Employment Project, provided about 20,000 islanders with over 1 million days of work and training. CAUSE expanded from the capital (Honiara) to other major towns, including Auki, Gizo, Noro, and Munda. The program provided job training, employment opportunities, and short-term income for work to build essential community infrastructure.

World Bank–funded transport infrastructure continues to improve lives across the Pacific, including in Kiribati, Samoa,  Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. In Vanuatu, work is underway on critical upgrades to 65 km of road on the island of Espiritu Santo. In Samoa, work on the West Coast Road has connected the capital (Apia) with the international airport  and an inter-island port. It financed the construction of the Mali’oli’o Bridge on Savai’i island and the Moamoa Bridge on Upolu island.

Last updated: April 2025