Meet Sially Ngumi Turanga, Inspiring Inclusion in Solomon Islands
If you are a foreign investor looking for a tourism opportunity in the Solomon Islands, odds are your first call to government will be with Sially Ngumi Turanga.
“I am personally a very shy person but over the years I’ve developed the courage to be the first point of contact for tourism investors in our country from all around the world,” Sially explains.
Sially is the Deputy Director of InvestSolomons in the Ministry of Commerce, Industries, Labour & Immigration, a government agency that facilitates foreign investment into Solomon Islands, and itself a key partner in the Solomon Islands Threshold Program (SITHP).
It could have been a very different career path for Sially, who considered following her mother, a nurse from Isabel Province, and her father, a Dentist from Western Province, into the medical profession.
“But medicine wasn’t my destiny. My first taste of tourism was working at the Solomon Islands Visitors Centre, which allowed me to attain a degree with a double major, in Public Administration and Tourism, and after that into hotels.”
Solomon Islands in the late 1990s and early 2000s experienced a severe period of civil unrest known as ‘the tensions’, and the nascent tourism industry was one casualty of the strife. But Sially saw and still sees in the tourism sector an emerging promise brimming with possibility despite the recent setbacks caused by the covid pandemic and its impact on travel to Solomon Islands.
Prior to the pandemic, tourism accounted for 10.5% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product, generating revenue of USD$132 million, and it was growing.
The impacts of the unexpected shocks and the unrealized tourism potential of this thousand-island nation led to a formal agreement in 2022 between the US Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Solomon Islands Government to work together in the tourism sector - to find sites, increase investments, and identify high impact reforms, so that tourism could make a much higher contribution to the country’s bottom line and overall economic wellbeing.
Sially is making a major contribution to that work in her role as Co-Chair of the Accessing Land for Tourism Investment Facilitation (ALTIF) Task Force under the SITHP, where she leads the investment reform team.
Sially at work
“My role on the Task Force is to identify and analyze barriers and find ways to make it easier for genuine investors to come to our Country as their preferred tourism investment destination - I want investors to participate in sectors that can broaden our economic base. The type of approach being used (the Facilitated Governance Reform model, which finds local solutions to local problems) is new and interesting and it engages all the Technical Officers in our respective fields, and we learn so much from each other. I want to be part of the team who achieves major changes for our Country in terms of investments.”
As a leader in her chosen field and when asked about what the International Women’s Day theme for 2024, Inspire Inclusion, means to her, Sially says simply: “I believe the term means showing other women you care and respect them and together we build each other up in an environment which is not fair at times.”
And for women, Sially draws a distinction between her personal life and work life: “My Husband is very supportive and is proud of how I’ve progressed at work over the years. My brothers look to me not only as their sister but have great respect for my work. In our matrilineal system, females have the upper hand in terms of land tenure system, thus my brothers also respect that status.
Sially and her family
“In our office, I am working with all men, and they are very supportive as well, because we work together, value each other’s tasks and work towards a common goal.”
Because of her background, Sially also defines Inspiring Inclusion as women appealing to other women to more supportive of each other.
“Before they act, women do consider the barriers (to full participation in the labour force), and women are more reserved. We do not have a broader pool of women or a women’s network; women excelling in their field and supporting others to do the same. Sometimes, women ourselves do not support each other, we do not want to see others progress and this is evident at times in the Solomon Islands.”
“However, we are a developing country, there is more focus towards females, females are working their way up. I am so privileged to be part of this International Women’s Day and sharing this and hopefully empowering other women to face challenges,” Sially concluded.
Postscript: The MCC-Solomon Islands Threshold Program aims to achieve gender equality throughout its work, and there is progress to be made.
- Tourism Investment Task Force: 7 participants, 3 women (43%)
- ALTIF Reform Teams: 7 participants, 3 women (43%), including one co-chair (Sially).
- FoVEP National Task Force: 3 participants, 1 woman (33%).
- FoVEP National Working Group: 16 participants, 6 women (37%).
- FGR facilitation team is 50% women.
