The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alfred Maoh and The New Zealand High Commission Jonathan Schwass signed an agreement this afternoon aimed at improving water security in Vanuatu.
New Zealand will provide over VT450 million ( NZ$6 million) to support the Water Sector Partnership of Vanuatu for the next three (3) years.
This funding will build on the success of an earlier pilot and will deliver water supply infrastructure and safe water to rural communities across Vanuatu. This will make a major contribution to the Government of Vanuatu’s goal of delivering safely managed drinking water to all people in Vanuatu by 2030.
New Zealand and UNICEF have been directly supporting the Department of Water Resources (DoWR) since 2014 to address water security problems in Vanuatu.
Over the past two years we have further lifted our ambition to develop a more systemic and sustainable approach to addressing water security.
This work has culminated in the design of the Water Sector Partnership - a four-year activity focused on assisting the DoWR to operationalise their ‘National Implementation Plan for Safe and Secure Drinking Water’.