The University of the South Pacific and the Asian Development Bank have teamed up to share knowledge and expertise to further their work in the region.
The two organisations signed a five year cooperation agreement in Manila this month.
The university's vice chancellor and president, Rajesh Chandra, says there are various plans including holding workshops on economic policy as well as a focus on renewable energy, with a 20 million dollar proposal to convert six campuses to solar power.
He told Sara Vui-Talitu more about what they hope to achieve.
USP's Suva campus
Photo: wikicommons
Transcript
RAJESH CHANDRA: Basically we will pursue four main objectives. These are exchange of information and knowledge and plans and so this is broadly exchanging of information that we have in our respective areas and the second one is to develop a set of joint activities and draw on our expertise and ADB's expertise for the benefit of ADB member countries and USP member countries in the region and the third one is to engage in regular consultation and evaluation of rolling work program that we have developed and finally for ADB to help further develop USP's capacity in the areas of economic policy and modelling and to promote sound public policy making and implementation in the Pacific region.
SARA VUI-TALITU: So how did it first come about?
RC: Well this one goes back to about 2010 and that is when we started this journey with a grant from the Indian government to the Asian Development Bank for Pacific Island countries and the ADB then looked at USP as a very good vehicle through which this money could benefit a large number of Pacific Island countries. So we used those funds to improve our flexible learning and make some improvements to USP Net and among other things to establish links with institutions in Asia and explore possibilities for soft finance, loan finance, from the ADB. We then proceeded from that and succeded to have a soft loan agreement where we constructed the Kiribati campus and now that's done. And we are now in the advanced stages to offer the construction of the Solomon Islands campus and so we began working towards a much broader partnership and maybe a year ago, feeling we are coming to the tail end of whatever the agreement was for financing and so this is the culmination of all that work and thinking.
SV:I see. So it has just sort of grown then from strength to strength then.
RC: Yes, yes.
SV: So what has been the reaction to the news?
RC: Well the university is excited because we depend on a fairly narrow range of sources of funding and the strategic plan has a specific objective of widening that range of partners. The discussions we have had with ADB have been very warm from vice-presidents to experts working in particular areas that have been particularly forthcoming in how much they wish to work with the USP and so we have been heartened.
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