HONOURING A UNITED STATES WAR TIME LEGACY

Honiara :  13 January 2016

The Solomon Island’s Prime Minister, the Hon Manasseh Sogavare, told the visiting United States Army Commander for the Asia-Pacific Region, General Vincent Brooks, when he called on the Prime Minister, today, that the Democratic Coalition for Change Government is committed to ensuring the proposed United States ‘Bloody Ridge Project’ on Guadalcanal is successfully implemented.

SOLOMON ISLANDS GOVERNMENT MOVES ON LOGGING LICENCES

Honiara :  17 October 2016
 
It was announced, today, the Solomon Islands Government, through the Ministry of Forestry and Research (MOFR), will not issue any more ‘felling licences’ to newly registered foreign companies intending to carry out logging activities in the country.
 
This step has been taken to control the influx of foreign logging companies that have shown an interest to participate in logging activities, but also to control illegal entry into unlicenced concession forest areas.

CANADA's CITREC PROGRAMME HELPING THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

13 May 2018

Guadalcanal Province’s partnership with Canada through the CITREC programme is touching the lives of many Guadalcanal people.''

What is CITREC?     It is the abbreviation for the Canadian International Training & Education Corp and is a leader in providing Canadian standard education and training beyond Canadian borders in collaboration with its partner institutions.

Quoting from CITREC’s website:

“CITREC specializes in bringing Canadian institutions and certification programmes to the world and making Canadian education more accessible globally.  CITREC introduces and promotes knowledge solutions aimed at preparing youth to become leaders and succeed in the global workforce. CITREC is committed to quality, not quantity.”

The Guadalcanal Premier and his administration have been pursuing opportunities for local people for many months, particularly young members of the community, to gain training in Canada aided by CITREC’s Chairman and Honorary Consular General, Mr. Aswant Dwivedi.

In February this year, the Guadalcanal Provincial Premier, Anthony Veke, his Executive and officials received a visit from H.E Paul Maddison, the High Commissioner of Canada to Solomon Islands at the provincial headquarters in Honiara.

 On that occasion, Premier Veke briefed the visiting High Commissioner on the progress of GP’s partnership with Canada through the CITREC program.

Premier Veke also expressed his vision to explore other opportunities for Guadalcanal province to see Canada as a market destination for agricultural products.

The High Commissioner expressed him view that there were great opportunities for the partnership between Canada and the Guadalcanal province.

On the CITREC programme, the High Commissioner said he was glad to see the programme had evolved with opportunities for participants to get permanent residency in Canada.

Last week it was announced that Solomon Islands nationals travelling to Canada as part of the foreign worker programme, or migrating under a Permanent Residence nomination programme from Guadalcanal Province, would benefit from a new partnership arrangement with Air Canada for their travel to Canada.

The announcement also said the partnership benefit would also be extended to any Solomon Islands province that would be joining the education and training programme offered by CITREC.

The route would be from Brisbane, Australia and into Vancouver.

CITREC Chairman, Mr. Ashwant Dwivedi, welcomed the partnership saying the Air Canada partnership would help further propel Solomon Islands partnership with Canadian's.

The Guadalcanal Province is congratulated on the CITREC partnership programme and CITREC’s Chairman and the Government of Canada heartily thanked for assisting the Solomon Islands and the people of Guadalcanal in particular.

Yours sincerely

Frank Short

CREATING JOBS AND WORK OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE MAJORITY OF SI YOUTH

JOB CREATION TO COUNTER A 32.4 PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN THE SOLOMONS

A news bulletin broadcast on Radio New Zealand, today, 14 May 2018, quotes the Chief Executive of the Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce, Dennis Meone, has having said Solomon Islands needs to focus on creating jobs to engage its youth population.

Mr Meone gave details of Solomon Islands unemployment rate last year, of 32.4 percent and also gave details of national statistics which showed that 70 percent of the population is under the age of 30.

Mr Meone was quoted as having said:

"You know the basic question is can we, as a country, be able to provide jobs for these young growing population?

"The answer is not really,"

"And that is why the policy conversation that we are having with government is to look at opportunities. I think it is important that if government creates the conducive environment so that businesses can grow and hence create the jobs or provide the jobs."

I have pondered the very questions raised by Dennis for more than 20 years and been concerned about the steady rise in youth unemployment and the lack of job opportunities facing so many young people and actually likened the situation to a potential ticking time bomb.

I still lack the solutions to the unemployment situation and truly hope the Solomon Islands government can create the conducive environment to enable businesses to grow and facilitate jobs that will accommodate the youth.

I venture to suggest that Dennis, and the SIG, might find some encouragement and possible answers by reading an excellent article by Aneel Karnani, an Associate Professor of Strategy at the Stephen M Ross School of Business at the US University of Michigan.

The article Reducing Poverty through Employment is available to view on line.

It is rather a lengthy piece, but I have quoted here the first few paragraphs which could prove an invitation to read more of his responses to the subject matter.

“Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish, and he will be able to feed himself for the rest of his life. This is an old cliché, and like all clichés it has an element of wisdom. But, it does not go far enough. A fisherman with a simple rod and a canoe will not go hungry, but he will still be poor. For him to rise above poverty, he needs steady employment at reasonable wages in a commercial fishing company. Now his daughter might move up the development ladder and go on to become an engineer.

“Widespread poverty is an urgent challenge for the world. The starting point for addressing this challenge is the simple and obvious observation that the primary problem of the poor is that they have a low income. As the above parable indicates, the best way to alleviate poverty is to increase the income of the poor by providing productive employment. It is necessary to view the poor as producers and emphasize buying from them.

 “Many of the current approaches to poverty alleviation miss this simple point. Advocates of foreign aid believe that poor countries are caught in a “poverty trap” and need major injections of aid to trigger economic development.

 “Foreign aid is accused of emphasizing big objectives, big projects, top-down planning, and a one-size-fits-all approach rather than, as Easterly advocates, bottom-up solutions tailored to the local context.

“Another criticism is that very little aid actually goes to stimulate enterprise development, even though private enterprise is well established as the best path out of poverty.

“Foreign aid is also accused of creating continuing dependency and fostering corruption.”

Yours sincerely

Frank Short