On 31 October, ICDP Managing Director Catherine Fritz-Kalish AM offered a virtual address at the Green Rio Summit in Brazil, the host of this year’s G20 meetings. Under the theme of “Empowerment through Entrepreneurship”, she outlined the work of ICDP in supporting Pacific Island small businesses and entrepreneurs and shared some of the key ideas raised by Pacific Community members at September’s Dialogue on the Blue Economy.
Goroka Hub Coordinator Georgina Benson and her team have launched ‘The Waiting Hut’ – a community-based organisation dedicated to improving maternal and child health services in rural areas of the Eastern Highlands PNG.
OneLook co-founder and Apia Hub Coordinator Okalani Mariner was a member of the Commonwealth Youth Forum as part of the 27th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting — a momentous event marking the first time a Pacific Island Nation has hosted CHOGM. Her experience also involved speaking at the People’s Forum about the power of creative and performing arts to communicate important messages.
Our latest community dialogue held in September highlighted the progress of Less than Container Load to address small-volume export challenges for local firms in Solomon Islands, the impact of COVID-19 on market demand in Fiji through a case study of a Fijian landscaping business, and ways to leverage digital technology for sustainable business growth.
The development of sustainable ocean-based economies will be an ongoing challenge for Pacific Island nations, and progress over the next decade will require ever-stronger partnerships with Australia and New Zealand as well as within the 16-member Pacific Islands Forum.
The Blue Economy Dialogue, held online on 26 September, featured oceans expert Taholo Kami and a panel of Pacific contributors, including Suva Hub coordinator Salote Waqairatu-Waqainabete, ‘Less than Container Load’ project lead James Kana and director of NZ tech company Ackama Josh Forde. For our members, it was not only an opportunity to reconnect but also to explore a topic of global importance from a Pacific perspective and articulate some key messages to world leaders about the challenges we face in our region.
Join us online on 26 September for a collaborative talanoa on the Blue Economy and opportunities it offers to the Pacific region in terms of economic growth, improved livelihoods and healthier ocean ecosystems. The dialogue is open to all members of the ICDP Pacific Community with an interest in the Blue Economy – a framework that promotes sustainable use of oceans and inland water resources for social, economic and environmental progress.
In June, ICDP and DLA Piper co-hosted the long-awaited second round of workshops ‘Building a globally focused business’ for entrepreneurs, business owners and executives in Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
The PNG workshop welcomed 26 participants and was delivered both online and in person at the Gateway Hotel in central Port Moresby, while the Fijian event brought together 47 participants at the newly refurbished Tanoa Plaza at the heart of Suva.
To round out the month of April, ICDP hosted the highly anticipated online talanoa on Adaptive Leadership on 30th April 2024. The dialogue was a huge success with nearly 30 members of the ICDP network convening to learn about the leadership style and hear from ICDP Director Catherine Fritz-Kalish AM.
In late March – early April, we convened the last round of cross-Pacific dialogues for Red Hat Impact’s Trade Finance Vehicle 2.0 project, one of our most significant collaborations to date. TFV 2.0 is designed to help Pacific women entrepreneurs reduce their costs around production, trade, financing and logistics.
