Solomon Islands Telecommunications and ICT Development Project

Before this project, the Solomon Islands — a nation of over 900 islands spread across 1.34 million km2 of ocean — had one of the least developed telecom sectors in the Pacific, dominated by a single operator with high prices and minimal rural reach. The World Bank-financed Telecommunications and ICT Development Project ran from August 2010 to March 2015, with AUD 4.8 million in co-financing from the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), working with the Ministry of Communication and Aviation to open the mobile market to competition and extend last-mile access.

The project aimed to lower the cost of telecommunications and expand access by ending the single-operator monopoly and enabling market entry by a second mobile operator.

Reforms opened the mobile market to a second operator alongside incumbent Solomon Telekom, and the project catalysed a distributed retail network of 'Telekom Me' mobile top-up agents.

The reform coincided with the entry of a second mobile operator, driving a roughly 60% fall in call prices — a three-minute local call cost $1.20 in 2010 and less than $0.50 by 2013, per the World Bank. Telecom access grew from an estimated 11% of the population (about 65,000 people) before competition to 54% by May 2013. Over 8,000 individuals and small businesses — the majority women — signed up as 'Telekom Me' agents since 2010, earning margins above 10%.

An Australian DFAT Independent Completion Report evaluated the programme as having achieved its intended outcomes, corroborating the World Bank's own reporting. However, the World Bank is explicit that this was primarily a voice/mobile-access success: internet affordability and outer-island broadband coverage remained a significant unmet challenge after the project closed, prompting a follow-on National Broadband Infrastructure Project.