VANUATU will receive $USD10 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to strengthen project delivery, build resilience to disasters, support private sector growth, and accelerate sustainable economic development.
Vanuatu is among the world’s most disaster-prone nations, facing significant hurdles from geographic isolation, limited institutional capacity, and high costs of delivering basic services across its dispersed island population.
“Vanuatu’s development priorities are evolving rapidly in an increasingly uncertain environment,” said Jyotsana Varma, Regional Director of ADB’s Pacific Liaison and Coordination Office.
“This facility gives the government the flexibility and capacity to respond to emerging challenges, strengthen project delivery, and invest in long-term resilience.”
The Vanuatu Sustainable Economic Transformation Facility is the ADB’s first Small Expenditure Financing Facility in the Pacific region. It provides flexible, multi-sector funding that enables the Vanuatu government to respond faster to emerging development needs while improving the effectiveness of ADB-supported investments.
The facility will initially allocate $USD 2.5 million to boost the capacity of the Vanuatu Project Management Unit and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management. This will strengthen project and financial management, procurement, safeguards, and monitoring systems as the government manages a growing portfolio of investments.
Besides institutional support, the financing will help address project implementation challenges, improve maintenance of critical infrastructure and services, and enable rapid disaster recovery efforts. The facility targets priority areas including public-private partnerships, digital transformation, agriculture development, and water security.
The initiative is financed through the Asian Development Fund.
