This material belongs to: Solomon Star News.
The Secretary to Cabinet, James Remobatu, today signed on behalf of the Government of Solomon Islands a preparatory-phase Project Document titled, Transparency and Accountability for the people of Solomon Islands.
Being a high priority of the Solomon Islands Government, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has stepped in to support the Government with this project under a cost-sharing arrangement. The SIG is contributing SBD$9 million to the project for the next three years (2017-2019).
This nine preparatory phase project will initially support the Government’s efforts to reduce corruption and develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels to ensure effective and timely achievement of national development outcomes as outlined in the National Development Strategy, as well as in the Sustainable Development Goals.
This will be delivered through implementation of several pilot initiatives and more importantly, the formulation of a fully-fledged project (of 3-4 years) that will address the prevention side of the anti-corruption agenda in the public sector and also increasing social accountability and awareness on corruption issues through the engagement of the civil society and other non-state actors.
The expected outputs from this initiation phase and during the fully-fledged phase have been designed to support the implementation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) Action Plan (2017-2019).
The project will also provide technical and coordination support to national institutions responsible for curbing corruption such as the Janus Taskforce and the Solomon Islands Independent Commission Against Corruption (SIICAC) when established by the incoming Anti-Corruption Act.
When signing this initiation phase of the project, Mr. Remobatu confirmed that UNDP is the only development partner who has thus far stepped up to cost share the project with Government, but further expressed Government’s strong desire for other development partners to step up to contribute financially or in-kind to this very important project.
He said, Government has made an unwavering commitment to the fight against corruption at the public sector, private sector, and at the community level. Cost-sharing with development partners is the best modality when there is so much to do and Government does not necessarily have adequate resources and the expertise to fully deliver the NACS Action Plan.
Apart from its cost-sharing contribution and the Executing Agency for this project, UNDP will also provide technical expertise and sourcing of lessons learned from its global network. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Corruption (UNODC) will also provide technical support to the project.
