Pacific Regional Connectivity Program

closed

The development objective of the Regional Connectivity Project is to reduce the cost and increase the availability of international bandwidth for participating countries, and thereby facilitate the development of a wide range of Information and communication technologies (ICT) applications to support social and economic development in the Pacific region. There are three components to the project. The first component is submarine cable system. This component include: (a) the construction of an 827 km repeater cable linking Nuku'alofa (Tonga) with Suva (Fiji), and (b) a cable lands station in Tonga. The second component is enabling environment. This component will finance technical assistance for the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) on (a) telecommunications policy, legal and regulatory development, licensing harmonization, and on the legal and regulatory environment for Internet and e-transactions, and (b) regulatory capacity building. The third component is project management and administration this component will provide administrative support to the MIC in the areas of project management, procurement, financial management, communications strategy and audit.