Pacific countries presented 79 projects at the summit, providing donors and the private sector with opportunities to identify projects for partnership and collaboration. Partners and donors have responded by committing NZ$255m in grant funding and NZ$380m in concessional loans to support over 40 of the proposed projects.
Some projects are sufficiently advanced to enable funding to be confirmed by donors but others will require further work in the weeks ahead.
Investors include co-hosts New Zealand and the European Union, Australia, the Asian Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the World Bank Group, and the United Arab Emirates.
"Clean and efficient modern energy services are the cornerstone of sustainable development, economic activity and poverty reduction,” said New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully. “Currently, the Pacific region meets around 80% of its electricity generation needs from expensive imported fossil fuels. Yet the region has abundant renewable energy resources, including hydropower, solar, wind, biomass and geothermal."
Investment projects featured by Pacific Island countries at the summit would help many of them increase their power generation from renewable resources to close to 50% of total supply, he added.
EU development commissioner Andris Piebalgs said that the European Union's cooperation with the Pacific stretched back over a decade and the EU welcomed the opportunity to form innovative partnerships, particularly with the energy sector. "Investing in global renewable energy reflects the needs of our modern world,” he said. “Working with our partner countries in the Pacific, the EU is committed to catalyse real change quickly, bringing citizens and business together to provide security, sustainability and prosperity.”
McCully also announced NZ$65m of New Zealand funding to assist Pacific Island countries to realise their renewable energy and energy efficiency plans. Support was announced for some of our closest neighbours; the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.
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