Rebuilding Ha’apai: One Year On

It was just over a year ago that Cyclone Ian destroyed much of the infrastructure on Ha’apai. I’ve been very grateful to have the opportunity to lead the World Bank team’s efforts at supporting the reconstruction. We’ve made progress—contracts have been let for constructing 400 houses—but it is not fast enough for my liking as people are still not rehoused. Hopefully not too much longer …  This video shows why such a project is not only important, but personally the most rewarding work I’ve done for the Bank.

Kiribati Road Rehabilitation Project

Since 2014 I’ve been working in Kiribati—first on a project to rehabilitate the main road and then on aviation. The Bank prepared a really nice slideshow and story on the road project which can be found here.  It’s taken a lot longer than anyone had hoped, but we’ve an excellent contractor who is doing great work and the outcome of the project will be some excellent road infrastructure.

Because of work demands—I’ve been asked to prepare an emergency aviation project for Vanuatu—I have turned over the Kiribati projects to someone else to finish them, although I will continue to provide support as I have all the institutional memory!