World Bank

In a statement, Vanuatu's finance minister Gaetan Pikioune said the government requested the additional funding to ensure the continued upgrade of the country's main international airport in Port Vila.

The bank's country director for the Pacific, Michel Kerf, said aviation is critical to Vanuatu's economy, providing essential links for tourism, trade, disaster response and recovery.

Financial consumer protection ‘involves laws, regulations and institutional arrangements that safeguard consumers in the financial marketplace’, as defined by the World Bank.

According to the Second National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2016 – 2020, the Bank of Papua New Guinea will be taking the lead in developing the framework.

Development of the framework will focus on three areas. They are: Regulatory; Financial Service Providers; and Consumers.

Michel Kerf will oversee the World Bank's regional portfolio which includes 55 projects across 13 countries worth more than one-billion-US-dollars.

He thanked his predecessor Franz Drees-Gross for his work over the past three years which he says helped broaden engagement in many areas in the Pacific including disaster resilience, fisheries and connectivity.

RNZ reports the "Reducing Vulnerabilities" report predicts a stable growth outlook for East Asia and the Pacific up until 2018.

But it says the Pacific countries are particularly vulnerable given their small economies which are susceptible to external shocks from the global economy as well as from the high risk of natural disasters in the region.

Historically, these industrial monoliths have been functional eyesores -- often inciting resentment and "not in my backyard" protests from local residents.

But as cities generate more trash -- the World Bank predicts global rubbish disposal will triple to 4 billion tons a year by 2100 -- the need to change our attitudes to waste is becoming more urgent.

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) will accelerate global and national responses to disease outbreaks that threaten large populations and fragile economies.

He said the PEF, a combination of catastrophe insurance and bonds, is a direct reaction to the sluggish donor response to the outbreak of Ebola, which killed thousands and shut down economic activity for months.

"The recent Ebola crisis in West Africa was a tragedy that we were simply not prepared for. It was a wake-up call to the entire world," Dr Kim said.

It says this could create up to 15,000 jobs by 2040.

Called 'The Pacific Possible: Tuna Fisheries report' it has been released at a meeting of Forum Fisheries committee in Port Vila.

Released today, the 'Precautionary Management of Deep Sea Mining Potential' report recommends that Pacific countries supporting or considering deep sea mining activities proceed with a high degree of caution to avoid irreversible damage to their ecosystems.

It also stresses the need for strong governance arrangements to ensure that appropriate social and environmental safeguards are in place.

Released to coincide with World Toilet Day 2015, Unsettled: water and sanitation in urban settlement communities of the Pacific, highlights the reasons why thousands of families in Melanesia – Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea (PNG) – are unable to access basic water and sewage services.

The report makes a number of recommendations on how governments, utility providers, charities and donors can work together to improve access and affordability.

“This is the best story in the world today – these projections show us that we are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty,” said Jim Yong Kim, World Bank Group President.

The World Bank explained that it uses an updated international poverty line of US$1.90 a day, which incorporates new information on differences in the cost of living across countries and preserves the real purchasing power of the previous line of US$1.25 a day in 2005 prices in the world’s poorest countries.