The United Nations Resident Coordinator, Sanaka Samarasinha led a team from the United Nations to the Solomon Islands for the first time since COVID-19 forced borders closure in 2019. On Wednesday 27 July 2022, Mr. Samarasinha had a session with the media before he departs for Fiji in the evening. In Honiara, the UN team engaged with key government counterparts, the parliament and development partners.
During discussions with government, the UN Team discussed key priorities of the Solomon Islands and highlighted potential support by the UN, including in the areas of sustaining peace in Solomon Islands, achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), governance reform, better coordination, a scale up of the UN Presence and assistance in the Solomon Islands. Other issues discussed were Least Developed Country (LDC) graduation, job creation, service delivery in the provinces as well as disaster preparedness and COVID-19 response.
Here Mr. Samarasinha was speaking about an increased presence of UN in Solomon Islands in response to a question on whether UN is considering establishing another UN Office, similar to that of Fiji here in Honiara.
