Business Link Pacific has this week launched its suite of online business tools in the iTaukei language, a move its director says is intended to make digital business support more accessible to Indigenous Fijian entrepreneurs. Director Steve Knapp announced the rollout during an interview in Lautoka on Wednesday, saying the translation is part of a broader push to remove language barriers to business training and resources across the Pacific.
The launch coincided with a two-day, in-person workshop held at the Nalagi Hotel in Nadi earlier this week, which Mr Knapp described as the programme’s first opportunity to convene staff and partners face to face after operating remotely by email and Zoom. “This is the first time that we have been able to get everybody together in one place,” he said, noting participants came from around the Pacific to meet, network and test the newly translated tools.
Business Link Pacific (BLP) is a New Zealand government-funded initiative delivered by DT Global and has been supporting small businesses in the region for nine years. The programme intensified its assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing small grants, facilitating access to finance and offering targeted business support services to firms that struggled through the crisis. Mr Knapp said the investment is starting to produce results: “We are already starting to see some of those businesses flourish and be very successful.”
The iTaukei-language tools include the organisation’s online templates and resources designed to help entrepreneurs with business planning, financial management and accessing support services. While Mr Knapp did not provide a full inventory of items translated, he emphasised the significance of using local languages to increase uptake and comprehension among rural and non-English-speaking business owners. “It would be really interesting to see how we can translate into other local languages across the Pacific to make those business tools more accessible to small businesses,” he said.
For small business owners in towns such as Lautoka and Nadi, where a large portion of day-to-day commerce is conducted by iTaukei speakers, the translation could lower the threshold for engaging with formal business processes and finance applications. BLP’s recent in-person workshop offered participants a chance to trial the materials and give feedback in real time, an advantage Mr Knapp highlighted after months of virtual collaboration.
BLP’s work over nearly a decade has combined direct financial support with capacity-building, and the organisation says continued localisation of tools is a logical next step to deepen impact. The programme’s backers and delivery partners have yet to announce a timetable for translations into other Pacific languages, but the uptake of the iTaukei materials and feedback from this week’s workshop are likely to inform any expansion.
The release marks the latest development in regional efforts to strengthen small-business resilience after the pandemic, with international donor-funded programmes increasingly focusing on digital access and local-language resources as a way to widen participation. Business Link Pacific’s move to offer its tools in iTaukei represents a practical attempt to bridge the gap between online business services and the linguistic realities of many Pacific entrepreneurs.
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