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Asian Development Bank member fact sheet. ADB assistance to Samoa supports improvements in the delivery of basic social services, and provision of safer and more efficient road and maritime transportation, better internet connectivity, and effective disaster relief.

Economic growth and investment in infrastructure go hand in hand. A growing economy needs constantly improved infrastructure to ensure that the production and exchange of goods and services happens as smoothly and efficiently as possible

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development places gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls at the heart of its implementation with its promise to “leave no one behind”.

A rapidly growing population, poor human development indicators, and climate change risk exposure demand a public investment policy that is effective so as to ensure the sustainable growth and development of the Solomon Islands

This handbook serves as a guide to the applications, technologies, business models, and regulations that should be considered when evaluating the feasibility of a battery energy storage system (BESS) project.

The Asia and Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Unabated warming could significantly undo previous achievements of economic development and improvements of living standards. At the same time, the region has both the economic capacity and weight of influence to change the present fossil-fuel based development pathway and curb global emissions. This report sheds light on the regional implications of the latest projections of changes in climate conditions over Asia and the Pacific. The assessment concludes that, even under the Paris consensus scenario in which global warming is limited to 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels, some of the land area, ecosystems, and socioeconomic sectors will be significantly affected by climate change impacts, to which policy makers and the investment community need to adapt to. However, under a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario, which will cause a global mean temperature rise of over 4°C by the end of this century, the possibilities for adaptation are drastically reduced. Among others, climate change impacts such as the deterioration of the Asian “water towers”, prolonged heat waves, coastal sea-level rise and changes in rainfall patterns could disrupt ecosystem services and lead to severe effects on livelihoods which in turn would affect human health, migration dynamics and the potential for conflicts. This assessment also underlines that, for many areas vital to the region’s economy, research on the effects of climate change is still lacking.

A comprehensive series of nuclear tests were carried out by the United States at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, especially between 1952 and 1958. A Porites Lutea coral that was growing in the Enewetak lagoon within a few km of all of the high-yield tests contains a continuous record of isotopes, which are of interest (e.g. 14 C, 236 U, 239, 240 Pu) through the testing period. Prior to the present work, 14C measurements at ~2-month resolution had shown pronounced peaks in the D 14C data that coincided with the times at which tests were conducted. Here were port measurements of 236 U and 239, 240 Pu on the same coral using accelerator mass spectrometry, and again nd prominent peaks in the concentrations of these isotopes that closely follow those in 14C. Consistent with the 14C data, the magnitudes of these peaks do not, however, correlate well with the explosive yields of the corresponding tests, indicating that smaller tests probably contributed disproportionately to the debris that fell in the lagoon. Additional information about the different tests can also be obtained from the 236 U/ 239 Pu and 240 Pu/ 239 Pu ratios, which are found to vary dramatically over the testing period. In particular, the rst thermonuclear test, Ivy-Mike, has characteristic 236 U/239 Pu and 240 Pu/ 239 Pu signatures which are diagnostic of the rst arrival of nuclear test material in various archives.

Port Vila is the capital of Vanuatu. The Port Vila Urban Area (PVUA), defined as the Port Vila Municipality (PVM) and adjoining peri-urban areas, has a population of about 70,000. About 49,300 of these people live in PVM. Per capita gross national income in Vanuatu was approximately 279,402 vatu (Vt) (around $3,073) in 2011.