FAO and MAL launched Country’s First Digital Village Initiative (DVI) in Namobaula village in Malaita Province.

Auki (Malaita)- Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL) launched and handover Solomon Islands’ first digital village Initiative facility (project) to Namobaula village, Central Malaita in Solomon Islands. 

The digital village high tech project launched and delivered consist of laptops, TV screen, camera, 50 chairs, smart design tables and advance digital conference equipments aim to connect Namobaula village with other parts of Solomon Islands, the region and the world. The agriculture-oriented initiative was envisioned to empower rural farmers and resident through digital access vital to agriculture information, online resources, and service that will enhance farmers agriculture productivity and sustainability of community activities. 

Speaking on behalf of MAL during the handover ceremony, Permanent Secretary (PS), MAL-Dr Samson Viulu congratulate the community for being the recipient of country’s first Solomon Islands’ Village Digital Initiative.There are many communities across Malaita, and Solomon Islands that would like to have this type of advanced project, but you are fortunate to receive this project. This project is historic. The fact that you work hard with FAO project staff and MAL to complete this project is the evidence of how hard work your community is-Dr Viulu said.

The reason why you are selected in the first place is because Namobaula is one of hard-working communities in Malaita. On that note, I would like to thank the President of Malaita Youth Congress, MrPhilip Subu, for assisting FAO and MAL project team for selecting Namobaula as community that will be part of this pilot project in Malaita and Solomon Islands. As a pilot project, it is important for the community to deliver this project successfully, so that we would learn some lesson and duplicate to other communities-Dr Viulu said. 

As a community that involved in agriculture activities, this platform, will provide opportunity for your community to actively participate in agriculture activities and enhance your productivity. Availability of this platform now means you now have agriculture information and service at your finger tip. When you need information and service, you don’t have to come to Auki or Honiara, but you can now send email to MAL or browse the internet for information. At the same, access to internet also provide opportunity to find out about market price to help you decide on what price you can go for us producers. 

Dr Samson Viulu also encourage the community to utilise this digital platform in other areas or sector apart from agriculture. You can use this platform to support small and medium enterprise (SME) operations, your students can utilize the facility to do learning how to use computer at early stage and do educational research, you can co-partner with non-government organizations (NGOs) and development partners to co-implement project activities at you Namobaula village. Thus, you can utilise this project to transform your community in many good ways. As we complete this project, I would like to encourage community to develop a business plan so that it guides the community to utilise the project.

Speaking on-behalf of FAO, Mr Douglas Yee and Mr Obed Seni said, it is a honor to witness this milestone. As donorwhat we have witness today is an example of a fruitfulpartnership demonstrated by people. In particular, I would like to thank the hard-working community leaders, women, youthsand even people with disabilities for roles played in this project. Mr Seni said, Namobaula,s contribution in this tremendous, they even went beyond what we expected of them through their community contribution by doing the extension of the digital hub space that we have host the project. The community had used some of their own resources to extend the hub. This is a positive attitude and practices that every community should demonstrate to donor or partners when developing project-Mr Seni said.

In Malaita, we would have launched two Digital Community Hub today, but unfortunately, other would not able to host the other digital hub because of lack of understanding the community project team has. As a result, only Namobaulacommunity had manage to successfully complete the project. 

Speaking online from India, Sri Lanka, Federate State of Micronesia (FSM), and Samoa representing FAO, the virtual participants congratulate Solomon Islands, in particular, Namobaula for working hard with their team to achieve the first digital project in the country. While we fund this project, your effort in supporting this project to ensure it complete on the ground is important. There are other regional projects that are funded together with the Namobaula Digital Village project but are still incomplete, thus we would like to applaud the community leaders for hard work on the ground to support the project the ahead of other projects in the region. 

Speaking on-behave of Malaita Youth Council, President, MrPhilip Subu acknowledge FAO Solomon Island project team and MAL for believing in his intuition and judgement that the project is given to Namobaula community and youths. As someone who engaged widely with communities and youths in Malaita, I had observed Namobaula as one of many communities with strengths and lots of social capita and positive attributes that would contribute to success of any donor project. They had demonstrated it in building their own homes, church projects, electricity project with Solomon power, agriculture activities and their access road. Similarly, I would also like to thank Namobaula church leaders for partnership in this project. Church is one of the institutionswhich had a lot of respect from people in many or all communities in Malaita, therefore, it is good to seeNamobaula Church leaders play a role in part of projects in other spheres that does not undermine the values and principles of church. Now I would like to call the community to look after this important facility and utilise this project for good of the community and the youth. 

Director of MAL, extension division also join the team to congratulate the community in achieving this project. With limited resources available, sometimes, it is difficult to reach out to the community as division responsible. Now it is good to technical is available to support our agriculture activities, and I wish other communities around the country they have this platform so that our services can be provided through this platform. We will continue to support and provide extension services through this platform, and at the same time our extension service will continue to available at MAL office in Auki and through sub-station offices.

Chairman of the community, Mr. Rex Malachi humbly acknowledge FAO, MAL, and other stakeholders who join the launching of this project. Now the challenges are on us to look after this very important project. Already, we realize that communication through digital platform is powerful. Today we witness that we can talk to people around the world at once. At the same time, I would like to encourage the partners to work with us for sometime so that we have some capacity before you left. Again, thank you so much for see it fit for us to part of this digital project. 

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