Climate Change Impact and Structural Reforms in Kiribati
KIRIBATI
government also vowed to improve access to quality healthcare and improve living conditions
through proper waste management and pollution control.
12. Great efforts have also been taken to improve infrastructure, including transportation,
water and sanitation, energy supply, and information and communication technologies (ICT).
More specifically:
.
Transportation is underdeveloped due to high remoteness, fragility to climate change, and the
resulted high cost of construction, maintenance, and service delivery. Roads in South Tarawa are
deteriorating rapidly due to heavy usage, prolonged wet weather, and poor maintenance. Sea
transportation also remains underdeveloped due to insufficient infrastructure and technical
challenges, such as a lack of aid to navigation or ship-to-shore berthing infrastructure. Over the past
few years, many infrastructure investment projects on transportation, including land, sea, and air
transportation have been carried out to tackle the issues, with grants or concessional loans from
international aid organizations and foreign governments (Appendix Table 2).
•
Water and sanitation: The current poor access to water and sanitation services compared to
other Pacific Island countries (Figure 3, lower left panel) is expected to come under further pressure
from climate change as water lenses' yields and salinity are highly vulnerable to droughts or flooding
events. The KDP 2020-2023 puts strict goals in place to raise the access to safe drinking water and
good basic sanitation as well as to increase the number of desalination and distillation plants and
installed water pumps by 80 percent. Projects, including the South Tarawa Water Supply Project,
financed by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other donors are key to help
accomplish the government's targets (Appendix Table 2).
•
Energy: The government had sought out renewable energy to reduce the risk of external
over-reliance and to support sustainable and green growth. In 2012, the Kiribati Grid Connected
Solar Photovoltaic (PV) project was carried out to install solar PV systems, connecting to the main
grid in South Tarawa. The project, finished in 2018, has increased both the capacity of electricity
generation as well as the share of renewable energy in total electricity supply in South Tarawa from
non-existence to 9 percent. Furthermore, another project, the 2021-2024 South Tarawa Renewable
Energy Project (STREP), is expected to raise the renewable energy grid penetration to 44 percent
by 2024.
•
ICT: Access to ICT in Kiribati is limited, even compared to other countries in the region (Figure 3,
lower right panel). To rejuvenate the system, the Communications Act was passed in 2013, paving
the way for entry of two private companies and significantly increased the number of mobile
subscribers and internet users as well as upgrading the network quality (from 2G to 4G in urban area
and 3G in outer islands). Furthermore, the on-going Pacific Regional Connectivity Program Project
will install submarine cables and connect Tarawa and Kiritimati Island to the global cable network as
well as upgrade the internet services in the outer islands through a combination of microwave and
satellite systems.² When completed, the project will triple the number of people with access to
2 The cable in Kiritimati Islands has been landed in 2022 and is ready for connection installation.
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