BREAKING: New Zealand scraps big Pacific festival over virus fears

Issued on: 13/03/2020 - 01:20Modified: 13/03/2020 - 02:19  GMT/ZULU

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Wellington 

by Louise Healy and Biodun Iginla, France24

New Zealand cancelled one of the Pacific's largest cultural festivals on Friday, saying there was too much risk of attendees contracting coronavirus then spreading it throughout vulnerable island nations.

Auckland's annual Pasifika Festival normally attracts more than 60,000 people from across the region and is billed as the biggest Polynesian celebration in the world.

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But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she feared allowing it to proceed could lead to an outbreak similar to the measles epidemic in Samoa late last year that killed 83 people, mostly babies and toddlers.

"New Zealand has a responsibility, as the gateway to the Pacific, to do what we can to prevent any chance of transmission into the Pacific," she told reporters.

"Because of the ability of their health system to cope with cases, it would be hugely damaging -- we've already seen what happened with measles."

A combination of geographic isolation and under-resourced health infrastructure makes containing outbreaks particularly difficult in the Pacific islands.

Ardern said the festival, due to be held this weekend, would have brought together people from the islands who would have then returned home, potentially dispersing the virus.

"That was a risk there was no appetite for," she said.

New Zealand, most notably Auckland, serves as a hub for Pacific islanders and some epidemiologists criticised New Zealand for not doing enough over the measles outbreak to contain the illness.

French Polynesia recorded the South Pacific's first confirmed case of coronavirus on Thursday when it was revealed parliamentarian Maina Sage had tested positive.

There have been two confirmed cases of the virus in the US state of Hawaii but no others on Pacific islands, with suspected cases in the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Palau all testing negative.

New Zealand has had just five confirmed cases and no fatalities.

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Only one in five Pacific homes have electricity: World Bank

04 August 2016 - 05H25 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Louise Healy and Biodun Iginla, France24

 
 
 
 
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© AFP/File | Only 20% of Pacific Island households have access to electricity, according to a senior World Bank official

NUKU'ALOFA (TONGA) - 

Only 20 percent of Pacific Island households have access to electricity -- and the cost is among the highest in the world, according to a senior World Bank official.

Kamleshwar Khelawan, an energy specialist at the World Bank, said the energy-poor region required joint government-private sector investment to develop new sources of power.

"The Pacific countries lack, or have limited, indigenous energy resources while the high cost of imported fossil fuels means that Pacific Islands require an increased focus on alternative sources of energy," Khelawan said Wednesday at the Pacific Power Association Conference in Nuku'alofa, Tonga.

However, while significant investment was needed, the Pacific Islands' regulatory environment did not favour private sector participation in energy development, he said.

He added "weak or dated" laws in Pacific Islands countries and arrangements that were "often ambiguous in terms of roles and responsibilities" also deterred private sector investment.

"About seven million of the nine million people in Pacific Island countries do not have access to electricity," Khelawan said.

"Only about 20 percent of households (in the region) have access to electricity."

The average figure was skewed by very low rates in Papua New Guinea (15 percent), Solomon Islands (20 percent), and Vanuatu (30 percent), which account for the bulk of the region's population.

Khelawan noted there was hydropower potential in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea and geothermal possibilities in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Fiji. Solar and wind were the main renewable energy options.

"Governments alone cannot fund the significant investment needed. A combination of government, private sector and development partners? efforts are required," he said.

The World Bank Group and International Finance Corporation have been involved in several energy projects in the region.