TODAY (August 6) Pacific leaders agreed to invite the World Bank Group as an Official Observer of the Pacific Islands Forum PIF, the premier grouping of regional leaders. The Observer status is an important step forward for cooperation between Pacific governments and development partners.

The World Bank Group is scaling up support to Pacific Island countries. The World Bank Group has strengthened its activities across the region, including opening four new offices in Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa and most recently, Vanuatu. Over the next three years, the World Bank will make up to $240 million in grants and concessional financing available to Pacific Island countries to contribute to development outcomes, a significant increase on previous years.

The World Bank Group's private sector arm, IFC, has invested over $300 million in the Pacific over the past four years supporting new private investments in telecommunications, mining and financial services, all of which are improving people's lives.

"The Pacific Islands Forum is an important grouping of important leaders. It is an honour to be admitted as an Official Observer," said James Adams, Vice President, East Asia Pacific, World Bank. "This will better enable the World Bank and Pacific governments to work together to improve development outcomes in the region and bring real benefits to the lives of people in the Pacific."

The World Bank Group will be deepening and expanding upon existing areas of country-level and regional cooperation in the Pacific. This includes further cooperation in telecommunications, which has changed the lives of millions of Pacific Islanders. The World Bank Group has been supporting governments in many countries to introduce competition and bring down the cost of phone calls. This has contributed to a ten-fold increase in mobile phone usage in many countries.

The World Bank will expand engagement in the energy sector, supporting Pacific governments to reduce dependency on costly diesel fuel, move to cleaner and cheaper energy, and turn the lights on for their citizens.

The World Bank and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat signed a Memorandum of Understanding in October, 2009 in order to increase collaboration. The Observer Status will continue to strengthen this mutual support between the organizations and Pacific countries. The World Bank, 6/8/10.