The Nauru International Port is a

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manc ...

which is currently under construction on

Nauru Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru, formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies within the Micronesia subregion of Oceania, with its nearest neighbour being Banaba (part of ...

in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It will become the country's first international seaport and improve

commerce Commerce is the organized Complex system, system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions that directly or indirectly contribute to the smooth, unhindered large-scale exchange (distribution through Financial transaction, transactiona ...

and connectivity for the

island nation An island country, island state, or island nation is a country whose primary territory consists of one or more islands or parts of islands. Approximately 25% of all independent countries are island countries. Island countries are historically ...

. The $79.59 million

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

project will be a

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

-proof port which will be vital in receiving necessary supplies such as fuel, food, and medical supplies. The new port, which was originally expected to open in December 2020, is anticipated to fit Nauru's needs until at least 2050.

History

Nauru had planned for a large, maritime port for over a

century A century is a period of 100 years or 10 decades. Centuries are numbered ordinally in English and many other languages. The word ''century'' comes from the Latin ''centum'', meaning ''one hundred''. ''Century'' is sometimes abbreviated as c. ...

. To receive supplies, large ships would dock offshore and ferry cargo containers to the 111-year-old Aiwo Boat Harbor in a process that was unsafe, difficult, and inefficient. After the project was greenlighted in September 2019, construction of the port began the following month at the site of the aged harbor with funding from the

Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank to promote social and economic development in Asia. The bank is headquartered in Metro Manila, Philippines and maintains 31 field offices around the world. The bank was establishe ...

Green Climate Fund The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a Funding, fund for climate finance that was established within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Considered the world's largest fund of its kind, GCF's objective ...

, the governments of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

, and the Nauru Sustainable and Climate Resilient Connectivity Project. In preparation for the anticipated 2021 opening sixty local workers were trained in modern port practices such as safety, maintenance and

stevedoring A dockworker (also called a longshoreman, stevedore, docker, wharfman, lumper or wharfie) is a waterfront manual laborer who loads and unloads ships. As a result of the intermodal shipping container revolution, the required number of dockworke ...

. By March 2022 the second family moved into a newly constructed house as part of the Red Zone Rehabilitation Project. As part of the scheme, families whose property was encroached upon by the enlargement of the port area were given a house with a construction cost of $64,000 AUD paid for by the Nauruan government. It was anticipated that 250 individuals would receive a new home as part of the program. The $2.3m project addresses safety concerns related to living close to the construction site and the already-unsafe conditions of the structures which were originally built in the early to mid-twentieth century to house Chinese and

Caroline Island Caroline Island (also known as Caroline Atoll or Millennium Island) is the easternmost of several uninhabited coral atolls comprising the southern Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati. The atoll was first sighted by Eu ...

ers brought to Nauru by the British to work in the phosphate industry. In May of that year the ADB provided another $15 million grant to cover additional costs caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

References

External links

Nauru Maritime Port Authority
{{Nauru topics Transport in Nauru Government buildings in Nauru