The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is stepping up its focus on economic resilience, infrastructure and private sector development in the Pacific as global uncertainty exposes the vulnerability of small island economies to external shocks.
Emma Veve, Director General of ADB’s Pacific Department, said the bank’s new Pacific Approach 2026-2030 recognised the region’s exposure to events beyond its borders, including their effects on economic growth and inflation.
“The Pacific is hugely impacted by external events. They’re small, open economies, so they feel it when things happen in other countries,” Veve said.
“They really feel it through impacts on growth and inflation. These global events are really showing how the impacts of external shocks ramp up in these small Pacific countries.”
Veve said the strategy would guide ADB’s engagement with 12 Pacific Island countries over the next five years, with development solutions tailored to the region’s specific challenges.
“The headline news is that ADB is very much open for business in the Pacific, and that’s business with government and also business with the private sector,” she said.
“We want to work closely with the people of the Pacific to build their skill sets, to help them drive their own future development.”
The Pacific Approach differs from ADB’s traditional country partnership strategies because it covers multiple countries and places particular emphasis on how the bank works with them.
Veve said the strategy aimed to strengthen the region’s ability to withstand external shocks, including disasters caused by natural hazards, while addressing the structural challenges facing small island economies.
These include small markets, high costs of delivering public services, limited institutional capacity and difficulties building and maintaining infrastructure.
The strategy also prioritises human development and improving governments’ capacity to deliver essential public services.
Veve said the Pacific’s exposure to global developments reinforced the need to build resilience across the region, where external shocks can quickly affect economic performance and put pressure on already constrained resources.
The approach seeks to help countries strengthen their capacity to respond to these pressures while supporting development led by Pacific governments and communities.
ADB’s Pacific Approach 2026-2030 will guide its collaboration with the Cook Islands, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
The regional framework recognises the shared development challenges facing Pacific Island countries while allowing ADB to tailor its support to their individual circumstances.
With global uncertainty adding to the region’s existing climate and infrastructure challenges, the bank’s strategy places resilience, stronger institutions and private sector engagement at the centre of its Pacific development work.
