{"id":20470,"date":"2025-12-04T10:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/adb-world-bank-launch-pacific-islands-projects-under-new-co-financing-model\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:47","slug":"adb-world-bank-launch-pacific-islands-projects-under-new-co-financing-model","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/adb-world-bank-launch-pacific-islands-projects-under-new-co-financing-model\/","title":{"rendered":"ADB, World Bank launch Pacific islands projects under new co-financing model"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Full Mutual Reliance Framework, approved earlier this year, allows one institution to act as lead lender, cutting duplication and freeing up resources for implementation. The first project is a $236.5 million initiative to modernise Fiji&#8217;s primary healthcare system and build a regional hospital to combat soaring rates of non-communicable diseases. Diabetes is the leading cause of death in Fiji, where an amputation occurs every 8.5 hours.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This project will improve quality of care, reduce NCD prevalence, enable early detection, and deliver better health outcomes,&#8221; Fiji&#8217;s Finance Minister. Esrom Immanuel said in a video message during the launch. The second project will upgrade transport, urban and water infrastructure in Tonga, with ADB and the World Bank providing$120 million in grants, the country&#8217;s largest ever project funded by development partners. It will make improvements to transport and drainage systems around the capital Nukualofa, including a 720 m (0.45 mile) bridge across a lagoon to ease congestion and provide secure evacuation routes during disasters like tsunamis.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Countries with limited capacity were spending too much time co-ordinating with lenders instead of implementing projects, World Bank President Ajay Banga told a joint press conference with ADB President Masato Kanda.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The idea is to tackle that problem directly, reduce duplication, streamline how we work together, free up time, money, and talent to focus on execution of development,&#8221; Banga said of the cofinancing framework. Banga said about 20 more cofinanced projects were in the pipeline, spanning infrastructure, energy, agribusiness, healthcare and social protection.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This framework is a proof of concept for how multilateral development banks can operate as a more coherent system,&#8221; Banga said, noting talks were underway with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank and the African Development Bank on similar approaches.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20471,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-20470","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank on Thursday launched two Pacific islands projects under a first-of-its-kind co-financing model that aims to stream line processes and speed up delivery","published_date":"2025-12-04 00:00:00","news_description":"The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank on Thursday launched two Pacific islands projects under a first-of-its-kind co-financing model that aims to stream line processes and speed up delivery","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24496,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20470\/revisions\/24496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}