Since the 2018 announcement of the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific — worth 2 billion Australian dollars — just five projects have been approved for funding: a telecommunications cable project in Timor Leste; a solar plant in Papua New Guinea; a flood alleviation program in Fiji; a submarine cable project in Palau; and a hydropower transmission system in the Solomon Islands.
Despite these approvals, AIFFP contributions and the details of two of these projects are still in negotiations, and just AU$5.3 million ($4.09 million) has been disbursed to date supporting the scoping or the design phase of projects.
“That has gone to the Timor-Leste cable design, approximately AU$870,000; Fiji, Nadi flood alleviation project scoping study, AU$506,300; project preparation for potential PNG electrification investments, AU$726,000; project preparation for potential PNG transport investments, AU$1.6 million; a branching unit for the Palau cable, AU$1.2 million; and the remainder is program implementation support of around AU$400,000,” Elizabeth Peake, first assistant secretary at the Office of the Pacific explained at Senate estimates on June 4.