What works in Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands Telecommunications and ICT Development Project shows that market liberalisation in mobile telephony dramatically reduced call costs (~60% fall) and expanded telecom access from 11% to 54% of the population by 2013, while creating over 8,000 retail agent jobs. Coral Sea Cable System & Solomon Islands Domestic Network demonstrates that the introduction of undersea fibre infrastructure in December 2019 coincided with internet penetration rising from ~11–12% (2017) to 42.5% by January 2025. Markets for Change reveals that Solomon Islands' marketplaces—where 75–90% of vendors are women—generate an estimated US$10–16 million annually, though formal vendor associations and infrastructure improvements remain concentrated in select urban centres. However, the practices provide limited independent post-implementation evaluation data specific to Solomon Islands and do not quantify longer-term economic or social outcomes beyond these baseline shifts.