Journal articles on the topic 'Papua New Guinea. Office of Rural Development'

Papua New Guinea is an independent commonwealth in the South Pacific, lying just north of Australia and sharing its western border with Indonesia. The population of Papua New Guinea is 5.2 million, of whom 87% live in rural areas (2000 census) (National Statistics Office, 2003). The country has a very rich culture; for example, there are over 800 distinct language groups (although Papua New Guinea has less than 0.1% of the world's population, it is home to over 10% of the world's languages).

Abstract The current power struggle has taken on historical proportions, interrupting the four-year-old Somare government in Papua New Guinea one year short of its full five-year term. In August 2011, Speaker of Parliament Jeffrey Nape declared the Office of Prime Minister vacant, resulting in Parliament electing Peter O'Neill as the new prime minister. Late in the year, the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

The Social Journalism Awards (SJA) is a journalism exchange programme providing Papua New Guinean journalists with opportunities to report on development issues. This article draws on information collected from SJA participants, and analysis of the media content they produced, to gather insights into development journalism in Papua New Guinea. The study found that Papua New Guinean journalists are interested in reporting on development issues but they lack appropriate opportunities to do so. The main issues facing Papua New Guinean journalists include few opportunities to report on issues outside the national capital; few professional development or training opportunities; few opportunities to report on development issues, particularly those affecting the rural poor; conflicts of interest for media owners including the government and foreign corporations with mining interests; and low pay within the industry. The study showed that when given appropriate opportunities, PNG journalists can contribute to development and democracy in meaningful ways. The article concludes that it is important for media indices to go beyond procedural freedoms and to measure substantive freedoms, or opportunities, available to journalists.

Many governments and NGOs have argued for using tourism, especially community-based tourism (CBT), as a development tool. While this tourism option is often described as more sustainable in terms of contributions to destination community well-being, there is only a limited understanding of the processes that actually underpin CBT and its outcomes in peripheral destinations. This article argues that one reason for this limited understanding is that research into CBT has typically been conducted from a Western perspective with little consideration given to historical and political contexts of colonization and disempowerment. This article reports on a research study that used an alternative, culturally appropriate research methodology with 12 rural PNG villages that had self-initiated CBT ventures and that specifically sought to give these village communities a voice in understanding how CBT can be developed to be one part of larger sustainable community development processes. Major findings included: a positive view of tourism as an additional source of income that fitted well with existing sustainable livelihoods; strong connection between development decisions and the core Melanesian values of clan identity, leadership, and support from elders, community cooperation and reciprocity in the successful maintenance of tourism activities; the need to manage the entire supply chain and not be limited by the actions and power of external tourism operators and agents; the need for education and training in many aspects of tourism to enhance entrepreneurial approaches and greater returns from the supply chain; and the challenge of gender issues.

Abstract Visual research methods continue to be explored as a viable tool within community development, particularly amongst advocates for participatory approaches. It is widely agreed that visual research methods can assist participants in externalizing abstract concepts and create spaces for reflective dialogue. However, these methods are frequently used across the sector with little theorizing or critical reflection. Moreover, visual research methods and participatory processes are often conflated. There is also an assumption that visual research methods, particularly when used in development contexts, can disrupt power structures. This research draws on a case study from Papua New Guinea (PNG) to modestly challenge this assumption and, in doing so, argues for more critical and reflexive practice across community development. The article critically analyses a workshop held in rural PNG in 2013 that employed a visual multimethod approach. The workshop took place over four days with the aim of creating a local community development plan. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that while the visual research methods used in PNG demonstrated evidence of shifting some power structures, this was not necessarily because of the method or methods themselves, and was actually more closely linked to the locale in which we facilitated the method(s).

The centrality of gender equality for sustainable human development is well recognised and reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), however in many countries in the Pacific region gender inequality is widespread. Working with men and boys presents an important opportunity to address gender inequality. A ‘Men’s Health Project’ was implemented in rural districts in Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 2014-17, which aimed to promote gender equality and improve sexual and reproductive health and maternal and child health outcomes by actively engaging men. Community surveys were undertaken in each community before and after project implementation to enable a greater understanding of men’s knowledge and attitudes at these different time points. This paper reports findings from the more recent surveys with 400 men in Timor-Leste in 2016 and 243 men in PNG in 2017, in order to provide a ‘snapshot’ of the situation in these rural communities at this time. In both countries, the vast majority of men reported that the husband makes the major decisions in the household (80% in Timor-Leste and 84% in PNG). In Timor-Leste, 5% of respondents felt it was okay for a husband to beat his wife, with 13% reporting this in PNG. Findings suggest that meeting SDGs 3 and 5 will require ongoing and concerted efforts in Timor-Leste and PNG.

The road network of Papua New Guinea includes 8,258 km of national classified roads and another 19,937 km of lesser-trafficked but equally important provincial roads. The value of the national road network is more than 5 billion Kina (US$1 billion). Maintaining this significant asset places a great responsibility on the government and the Department of Works (DOW). Sadly, insufficient attention has been given to maintaining the road network. There is no doubt that poorly maintained roads have a significant adverse effect on national economic growth, with an adverse effect on gross domestic product. In a developing country such as Papua New Guinea, there is always a need to provide a basic level of access to all areas of the country to be able to provide basic services for all the population (access to markets, administrative, health, education). A poorly maintained road network limits access and deprives rural populations of basic services. Therefore, DOW, with funds and guidance provided by the Asian Development Bank, has, with the assistance of a Finnroad consultant, developed a road asset management system (RAMS). RAMS is a tool for storing and presenting road data information, planning short-and long-term road maintenance, creating budgets, and maximizing economic returns of investments made for the road network. The government of Papua New Guinea has also established requirements for institutional reform and strengthening under its public sector reform program. Furthermore, responding to community and other stakeholder pressure, the government has committed itself to launching a road sector reform program.

Abstract The article introduces the challenges of maintaining effective security (of both personnel and property) on a 220 hectare rural/suburban University campus, The Papua New Guinea University of Technology, located on the outskirts of Lae, the second-largest city in Papua New Guinea, serves as its main port and manufacturing hub. Since the Independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975, the city of Lae, the University (of approximately 3000 students, and 1500 academic, technical, and administrative and staff) and its surrounding communities have faced increasing pressing security issues, some caused by internal (on campus) and others by external (off campus) factors. After a long, politically motivated student boycott in 2016 (which ended up with destruction of varied University properties and the death of a student), the University has endeavoured to create a safe campus environment by employing quantitative modelling predictive techniques, cost-effective technologies and appropriate social-psychological insights aimed at transcending extant tribal mindsets (the country is noted for having over 800 tribes and languages across its widely space geography of 462,840 Km and approximately 7 million population). Tribal conflict is a constant concern for the police and governing authorities, an inhibitor of balanced social and economic development of the resource-rich country.

Papua New Guinea is rich in natural resources, including minerals, oil, gas, timber and fish, and cash crops such as coffee, palm oil, cocoa, copra, rubber, tea and spices which contribute significantly to Papua New Guinea’s overall development. Several mining, oil and gas companies are currently operating in Porgera, Ok Tedi, Lihir, Hidden Valley, Sinivit, Simberi, Tolukuma, Kutubu and Gobe. The operations of these companies have generated an estimated K13.42 billion to Papua New Guinea’s economy. Landowners affected by these developments also receive royalties from those operations. However this wealth has not been translated into tangible human development across the country, as shown in persistently poorly performing social indicators. Instead income from the exploitation of natural resources is being used in unplanned projects and not focused on the delivery of core social functions, such as the provision of a stable and non-distorting policy aimed at building and sustaining the development of a modern market, and legislative and regulatory frameworks, social services, social security and social infrastructure which would lead to the improvement in the delivery of essential services to all Papua New Guineans. There is widespread evidence of benefits not being distributed to all landowners. Landowners are yet to fulfil their aspirations regarding these developments and to see improvements in their living standards. This paper discusses two case studies: the Porgera and Lihir mines, outlining the landowners associations’ experiences, which illustrate issues of governance and management of the distribution of benefit flows from the exploitation of Papua New Guinea’s natural resource wealth.The focus of the article’s discussion is on governance and management issues that affect the distribution of benefits, delivery of essential services to rural areas of PNG, stability within government, and the expectations of landowners.

The effects of cash cropping on nutrition in Papua New Guinea are reviewed. The interpretation of the available evidence is complicated by the introduction of cash cropping simultaneously with services such as health and education of the rural population. However, there is indication that the growth of children improved over the period in which cash cropping increased, particularly in the highlands, where, as a result of the later introduction of cash crops, more baseline data are available. There is no reason to believe that the same effect did not occur in the lowlands, where the infant mortality rate fell progressively over the same period. There is also evidence of an increase in the height and weight of adults, as well as an increase in the prevalence of degenerative diseases. Programmes need to be developed that retain the important benefits of child health and at the same time arrest the increasing prevalence of degenerative diseases in adults.

This paper presents a synthesis related to the assessment of climate change and its impacts on productivity of staple crops in Papua New Guinea (PNG), paying close attention to the change in population in the next 80 years. As much as the changes in the climatic and environmental factors will affect agriculture, evidence available in the literature show increase in global and local population will put additional pressure on agriculture by competing with available land and other resources that support agricultural productivity. The developing and underdeveloped countries are considered to be largely vulnerable as more than 85% of the people depend on subsistence agriculture for rural livelihood. This synthesis showed more than 60–85% of the rural people in PNG depend on sweet potato, banana, Colocasia taro, and greater yam. Projection of the population showed there will be 22–31 million people by 2100 and will depend on narrow staple-based subsistence agriculture. The population projected means the density will be 42 people per km2, putting more pressure on limited land available. When that happens, PNG will not be prepared to mitigate, be resilient and adapt because of poor infrastructure, no development plans and lack of post-harvest technologies for loss management of the staples, most of which are root and tuber crops.

Cameroon, a central African country, is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in Africa with about 280 living languages (Ethnologue 2020), for an estimated population of 26,727,521 people (Worldometer, 2020). Cameroon is second only to Papua New Guinea in terms of its multiplicity of languages for a relatively small population. Contrary to popular opinion, multilingualism exists even in rural communities; in fact, it is even more intense. In Lower Fungom, an incredibly linguistically diverse rural community in the Northwest region of Cameroon, high rates of individual multilingualism are the norm; it is common to find individuals who use more than seven distinct native languages to navigate through their daily lives. However, this multilingualism is usually neglected as a resource by foreign experts in the transmission of knowledge in linguistically diverse communities such as Lower Fungom. In their attempt to transmit knowledge in almost all ramifications including in the global pursuit of sustainable development, experts foreign to the target community typically focus only on the ‘understanding’ of their message, meanwhile ‘understanding’ could be totally inconsequential as far as the acceptance of a people is concerned. Sustainable development with trends away from the (socio-cultural and linguistic) norms of a community would be a complete farce. This paper aims at highlighting two key features indispensable for development to be extended to rural communities in Cameroon and for it to be sustainable. These aspects are the active collaboration with community members to obtain culturally appropriate interpretations and the use of all the languages existing in the community in transmitting knowledge. Data for this paper comprises recorded natural speeches, interviews, and observation notes due to prolonged stays in the area and resultant informal discussions with its indigenes. This study will not only add to the handful of studies on rural multilingualism. It will not also only promote multilingualism that has become an endangered practice, but it will also be a crucial addition to efforts of sustainable development in Cameroon.

Base on the Village Law No. 6 of 2014 concerning Village, namely villages have the right, authority and obligation to regulate and manage their own government affairs and community interests based on their rights of origin and local customs. In this authority, the village provides services to the community and conducts community empowerment. Sota village is a border region with Papua New Guinea. The location of Kampung Sota is relatively close to the seafront of the city of Merauke, has a population of 1,270 in 2014 and the resources of forests, rivers and swamps. This research use Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approach and SWOT analysis. The results of the study found: Strength Aspects namely 1). Raw materials are easily available, 2). Strategic business location, 3). Product prices begin to increase, 4). The products produced are export products, 5). Availability of Village Land, 6). Commitment from the village government. Weakness aspects are: 1). The lack of business capital, small production quantity, 2). Transportation for raw materials, 3). Unattractive packaging, 4). Cooperatives in the village are controlled by individuals / traditional leaders who control the local land. Opportunity Aspect namely 1). Products that have a prospective market share, 2). Production capacity can be reproduced, 3). Increased consumer needs and public awareness to use local products, 4). Development of technology and information, 5). Additional workforce. Threat aspects, namely: 1). Still depends on the rainy and dry seasons, 2). Increased bargaining position of raw material suppliers, 3). The emergence of new competitors, 4). Government regulations on National Parks. So that the type of potential business that can be developed is the management of eucalyptus oil. While the alternative business sector is tourism, clean water, nine basic commodities and arwana fish. Keywords: Development, Village Owned Enterprises, prospective

Since their first encounter with colonial administrators in 1963, approximately 2,000 indigenous people living in the Nimakot region of central New Guinea have been struggling with a tension between their indigenous way of life and the imperatives of the state. It is not just that they are on the international border between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia and therefore difficult to categorise into this or that country. It is that they do not habitually conceptualise themselves and others in categorical terms. They value and focus on relationships rather than categories. In their struggle to adapt the blooming buzzing complexities of their semi-nomadic lifestyle and relational logic to the strict and apparently static lines, grids, and coordinates of rationalistic statecraft they have become torn by duelling conceptions of “kantri” itself (Melanesian Tok Pisin for “country”). On the one hand, kantri invokes an unbroken rural landscape rich with personal and cultural memories that establish a firm and deep relationship with the land and the ancestors. Such a notion fits easily with local conceptions of kinship and land tenure. On the other hand, kantri is a bounded object, part of an often frustrating and mystifying system of categorization imposed by strict and rationalist mechanisms of statecraft. The following analyses this tension based on 22 months of intensive and intimate participant observation in the region from 1999-2006 with a special focus on the uses and impacts of writing and other new communication technologies. The categorical bias of statecraft is enabled, fostered, extended, and maintained by the technology of writing. Statecraft seeks (or makes) categories that are ideally stable, permanent, non-negotiable, and fit for the relative fixity of print, while the relationships emphasised by people of Nimakot are fluid, temporary, negotiable, contested and ambiguous. In contrast to the engaged, pragmatic, and personal view one finds in face-to-face relationships on the ground, the state’s knowledge of the local is ultimately mediated by what can be written into abstract categories that can be listed, counted and aggregated, producing a synoptic, distanced, and decontextualising perspective. By simplifying the cacophonous blooming buzzing complexities of life into legible categories, regularities, and rules, the pen and paper become both the eyes and the voice of the state (Scott 2). Even the writing of this paper is difficult. Many sentences would be easier to write if I could just name the group I am discussing. But the group of people I am writing about have no clear and uncontested name for themselves. More importantly, they do not traditionally think of themselves as a “group,” nor do they habitually conceptualise others in terms of bounded groups of individuals. The biggest challenge to statecraft’s attempts to create a sense of “country” here is the fact that most local people do not subjectively think of themselves in categorical terms. They do not imagine themselves to be part of “adjacent and competitive empires” (Strathern 102). This “group” is most widely known as the western “Atbalmin” though the name is not an indigenous term. “Atbalmin” is a word used by the neighbouring Telefol that means “people of the trees.” It was adopted by early patrol officers who were accompanied by Telefol translators. As these early patrols made their way through the “Atbalmin” region from east to west they frequently complained about names and their inability to pin or pen them down. Tribal names, clan names, even personal names seemed to change with each asking. While such flexibility and flux were perfectly at home in an oral face-to-face environment, it wasn’t suitable for the colonial administrators’ relatively fixed and static books. The “mysterious Kufelmin” (as the patrol reports refer to them) were even more frustrating for early colonial officers. Patrols heading west from Telefomin searched for decades for this mysterious group and never found them. To this day nobody has ever set foot in a Kufelmin village. In each valley heading west patrols were told that the Kufelmin were in the next valley to the west. But the Kufelmin were never there. They were always one more valley to the west. The problem was that the administrators wrongly assumed “Kufelmin” to be a tribal name as stable and categorical as the forms and maps they were using would accept. Kufelmin simply means “those people to the West.” It is a relational term, not a categorical one. The administration’s first contact with the people of Nimakot exposed even more fundamental differences and specific tensions between the local relational logic and the categorical bias of statecraft. Australian patrol officer JR McArthur crested the mountain overlooking Nimakot at precisely 1027 hours on 16 August 1963, a fact he dutifully recorded in his notebook (Telefomin Patrol Report 12 of 1962/63). He then proceeded down the mountain with pen and paper in hand, recording the precise moment he crossed the Sunim creek (1109 hours), came to Sunimbil (1117 hours), and likewise on and on to his final destination near the base of the present-day airstrip. Such recordings of precise times and locations were central to McArthur's main goal. Amidst the steep mountains painted with lush green gardens, sparkling waterfalls, and towering virgin rainforests McArthur busied himself examining maps and aerial photographs searching for the region’s most impressive, imposing, and yet altogether invisible feature: the 141st Meridian East of Greenwich, the international border. McArthur saw his work as one of fixing boundaries, taking names, and extending the great taxonomic system of statecraft that would ultimately “rationalise” and order even this remote corner of the globe. When he came to the conclusion that he had inadvertently stepped outside his rightful domain he promptly left, noting in his report that he purchased a pig just before leaving. The local understanding of this event is very different. While McArthur was busy making and obeying categories, the people of Nimakot were primarily concerned with making relationships. In this case, they hoped to create a relationship through which valuable goods, the likes of which they had never seen, would flow. The pig mentioned in McArthur's report was not meant to be bought or sold, but as a gift signifying the beginning of what locals hoped would be a long relationship. When McArthur insisted on paying for it and then promptly left with a promise that he would never return, locals interpreted his actions as an accusation of witchcraft. Witchcraft is the most visible and dramatic aspect of the local relational logic of being, what might be termed a relational ontology. Marilyn Strathern describes this ontology as being as much “dividual” as individual, pointing out that Melanesians tend to conceptualise themselves as defined and constituted by social relationships rather than independent from them (102). The person is conceptualised as socially and collectively constituted rather than individuated. A person’s strength, health, intelligence, disposition, and behaviour depend on the strength and nature of one’s relationships (Knauft 26). The impacts of this relational ontology on local life are far reaching. Unconditional kindness and sharing are constantly required to maintain healthy relations because unhealthy relations are understood to be the direct cause of sickness, infertility, and death. Where such misfortunes do befall someone, their explanations are sought in a complex calculus examining relational histories. Whoever has a bad relation with the victim is blamed for their misfortune. Modernists disparage such ideas as “witchcraft beliefs” but witchcraft accusations are just a small part of a much more pervasive, rich, and logical relational ontology in which the health and well-being of relations are conceptualised as influencing the health and well-being of things and people. Because of this logic, people of Nimakot are relationship experts who navigate the complex relational field with remarkable subtleness and tact. But even they cannot maintain the unconditional kindness and sharing that is required of them when their social world grows too large and complex. A village rarely grows to over 50 people before tensions lead to an irresolvable witchcraft accusation and the village splits up. In this way, the continuous negotiations inspired by the relational ontology lead to constant movement, changing of names, and shifting clan affiliations – nothing that fits very well on a static map or a few categories in a book. Over the past 45 years since McArthur first brought the mechanisms of statecraft into Nimakot, the tensions between this local relational ontology and the categorical logic of the state have never been resolved. One might think that a synthesis of the two forms would have emerged. Instead, to this day, all that becomes new is the form through which the tensions are expressed and the ways in which the tensions are exacerbated. The international border has been and continues to be the primary catalyst for these tensions to express themselves. As it turns out, McArthur had miscalculated. He had not crossed the international border before coming to Nimakot. It was later determined that the border runs right through the middle of Nimakot, inspiring one young local man to describe it to me as “that great red mark that cuts us right through the heart.” The McArthur encounter was a harbinger of what was to come; a battle for kantri as unbounded connected landscape, and a battle with kantri as a binding categorical system, set against a backdrop of witchcraft imagery. Locals soon learned the importance of the map and census for receiving state funds for construction projects, education, health care, and other amenities. In the early 1970s a charismatic local man convinced others to move into one large village called Tumolbil. The large population literally put Tumolbil “on the map,” dramatically increasing its visibility to government and foreign aid. Drawn by the large population, an airstrip, school, and aid post were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Locally this process is known as “namba tok,” meaning that “numbers (population, statistics, etc.) talk” to the state. The greater the number, the stronger the voice, so locals are now intent on creating large stable villages that are visible to the state and in line for services and development projects. Yet their way of life and relational cultural logics continue to betray their efforts to create such villages. Most people still navigate the complexities of their social relations by living in small, scattered, semi-nomadic hamlets. Even as young local men trained in Western schools become government officials in charge of the maps and census books themselves, they are finding that they are frustrated by the same characteristics of life that once frustrated colonial administrators. The tensions between the local relational ontology and the categorical imperatives of the state come to rest squarely on the shoulders of these young men. They want large stable villages that will produce a large number in the census book in order to bring development projects to their land. More importantly, they recognise that half of their land rests precariously west of that magical 141st Meridian. A clearly defined and distinct place on the map along with a solid number of names in the census book, have become essential to assuring their continued connection with their kantri. On several occasions they have felt threatened by the possibility that they would have to either abandon the land west of the meridian or become citizens of Indonesia. The first option threatens their sense of kantri as connection to their traditional land. The other violates their new found sense of kantri as nationalistic pride in the independent state of Papua New Guinea. In an attempt to resolve these increasingly pressing tensions, the officers designed “Operation Clean and Sweep” in 2003 – a plan to move people out of their small scattered hamlets and into one of twelve larger villages that had been recognised by Papua New Guinea in previous census and mapping exercises. After sending notice to hamlet residents, an operation team of over one hundred men marched throughout Nimakot, burning each hamlet along the way. Before each burning, officers gave a speech peppered with the phrase “namba tok.” Most people listened to the speeches with enthusiasm, often expressing their own eagerness to leave their hamlet behind to live in a large orderly village. In one hamlet they asked me to take a photo of them in front of their houses just before they cheerfully allowed government officers to enter their homes and light the thatch of their rooftops. “Finally,” the officer in charge exclaimed triumphantly, “we can put people where their names are.” If the tension between local relational logics and the categorical imperatives of the state had been only superficial, perhaps this plan would have ultimately resolved the tension. But the tension is not only expressed objectively in the need for large stable villages, but subjectively as well, in the state’s need for people to orient themselves primarily as citizens and individuals, doing what is best for the country as a categorical group rather than acting as relational “dividuals” and orienting their lives primarily towards the demands of kinship and other relations. This tension has been recognised in other contexts as well, and theorised in Craig Calhoun’s study of nationalism in which he marks out two related distinctions: “between networks of social relationships and categories of similar individuals, and between reproduction through directly interpersonal interactions and reproduction through the mediation of relatively impersonal agencies of large-scale cultural standardization and social organization” (29). The former in both of these distinctions make up the essential components of relational ontology, while the latter describe the mechanisms and logic of statecraft. To describe the form of personhood implicit in nationalism, Calhoun introduces the term “categorical identity” to designate “identification by similarity of attributes as a member of a set of equivalent members” (42). While locals are quick to understand the power of categorical entities in the cultural process of statecraft and therefore have eagerly created large villages on a number of occasions in order to “game” the state system, they do not readily assume a categorical identity, an identity with these categories, and the villages have consistently disintegrated over time due to relational tensions and witchcraft accusations born from the local relational ontology. Operation Clean and Sweep reached its crisis moment just two days after the burnings began. An influential man from one of the unmapped hamlets scheduled for burning came to the officers complaining that he would not move to the large government village because he would have to live too close to people who had bewitched and killed members of his family. Others echoed his fears of witchcraft in the large government villages. The drive for a categorical order came head to head with the local relational ontology. Moving people into large government villages and administering a peaceful, orderly, lawful society of citizens (a categorical identity) would take much more than eliminating hamlets and forced migration. It would require a complete transformation in their sense of being – a transformation that even the officers themselves have not fully undertaken. The officers did not see the relational ontology as the problem. They saw witchcraft as the problem. They announced plans to eradicate witchcraft altogether. For three months, witchcraft suspects were apprehended, interrogated, and asked to list names of other witches. With each interrogation, the list of witches grew longer and longer. The interrogations were violent at times, but not as violent or as devastating as the list itself. The violence of the list hid behind its simple elegance. Like a census book, it had a mystique of orderliness and rationality. It stripped away the ugliness and complexity of interrogations leaving nothing but pure categorical knowledge. In the interrogation room, the list became a powerful tool the officer in charge used to intimidate his suspects. He often began by reading from the list, as if to say, “we already have you right here.” But one might say it was the officer who was really trapped in the list. It ensnared him in its simple elegance, its clean straight lines and clear categories. He was not using the list as much as the list was using him. Traditionally it was not the witch that was of concern, but the act of witchcraft itself. If the relationship could be healed – thereby healing the victim – all was forgiven. The list transformed the accused from temporary, situational, and indefinite witches involved in local relational disputes to permanent, categorical witches in violation of state law. Traditional ways of dealing with witchcraft focused on healing relationships. The print culture of the state focuses on punishing the categorically “guilty” categorical individual. They were “sentenced” “by the book.” As an outsider, I was simply thought to be naïve about the workings of witchcraft. My protests were ignored (see Wesch). Ultimately it ended because making a list of witches proved to be even more difficult than making a list for the census. Along with the familiar challenges of shifting names and affiliations, the witch list made its own enemies. The moment somebody was listed all of their relations ceased recognising the list and those making it as authoritative. In the end, the same tensions that motivated Operation Clean and Sweep were only reproduced by the efforts to resolve them. The tensions demonstrated themselves to be more tenacious than anticipated, grounded as they are in pervasive self-sustaining cultural systems that do not overlap in a way that is significant enough to threaten their mutual existence. The relational ontology is embedded in rich and enduring local histories of gift exchange, marriage, birth, death, and conflict. Statecraft is embedded in a broader system of power, hierarchy, deadlines, roles, and rules. They are not simply matters of belief. In this way, the focus on witches and witchcraft could never resolve the tensions. Instead, the movement only exacerbated the relational tensions that inspire, extend, and maintain witchcraft beliefs, and once again people found themselves living in small, scattered hamlets, wishing they could somehow come together to live in large prosperous villages so their population numbers would be great enough to “talk” to the state, bringing in valuable services, and more importantly, securing their land and citizenship with Papua New Guinea. It is in this context that “kantri” not only embodies the tensions between local ways of life and the imperatives of the state, but also the persistent hope for resolution, and the haunting memories of previous failures. References Calhoun, Craig. Nationalism. Open UP, 1997. Knauft, Bruce. From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology. Ann Arbor: U Michigan P, 1999. McArthur, JR. Telefomin Patrol Report 12 of 1962/63 Strathern, Marilyn. The Gender of the Gift. U California P, 1988. Scott, James. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale UP, 1998. Wesch, Michael. “A Witch Hunt in New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial.” Anthropology and Humanism 32.1 (2007): 4-17.

<p><strong>Background: </strong>The Maternal Mortality Ratio in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 2008 was estimated at more than 700 deaths per 100,000 live births. In recognition of the high MMR, a Ministerial Taskforce was established in 2009 with recommendations to urgently address the workforce capacity in regard to maternal and child health services. In 2010, a new competency-based Bachelor of Midwifery curriculum was introduced into four universities in PNG and an increase in the numbers of midwifery students took place over a four year period.</p><p><strong>Aim: </strong>The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of Papua New Guinean midwifery graduates from the 2012 and 2013 Bachelor of Midwifery cohorts. These graduates were among the first to complete the revised national midwifery curriculum designed to improve the knowledge and skills of a registered midwife graduate.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>A descriptive exploratory study was undertaken to explore the experiences of 174 graduates in the first two years post-graduation. All graduates that were able to be contacted were provided with information about the study, consented and were interviewed either face-to-face or by phone/email. Quantitative data were analysed using simple descriptive statistics in SPSS and qualitative data underwent content analysis and coding by the research team.</p><p><strong>Findings: </strong>Almost all (90%) graduates were working as midwives with 39% of graduates working in rural and remote locations across PNG. Midwifery education prepared graduates well for their work as midwives, but many commented that the course needed to be longer to improve feelings of competence. Professional support during their graduate year varied depending on location and motivation of supervisors. Many graduates, particularly those in rural areas, expressed the desire to work under clinical supervision in a hospital setting for a period of 6-12 months at the end of their training to become more skilled and confident prior to seeking employment.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Most midwifery graduates from the new curriculum found employment as midwives. Only a minority of graduates have had opportunities for continued professional development or support from a mentor of senior colleague. Regular, ongoing professional development and supervision needs to be initiated for the provision of skilled and evidence based care. Support and incentives for staff to work in rural and remote areas should be considered.</p>

Abstract Background This study sought to assess the individual and contextual factors associated with barriers to accessing healthcare among women in Papua New Guinea. Methods The study was conducted among 14 653 women aged 15–49 y using data from the 2016–2018 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey. The outcome variable was barriers to accessing healthcare. Descriptive and multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted. Statistical significance was declared at P &lt; 0.05. Results Women aged 15–19 y were more likely to experience at least one barrier compared with those aged 40–49 y (adjusted OR [AOR]=1.48; 95% CI 1.18 to 1.86). Women with secondary/higher education (AOR=0.68; 95% CI 0.57 to 0.81), women in the richest wealth quintile (AOR=0.36; 95% CI 0.28 to 0.46) and those in the least disadvantaged socioeconomic status (AOR=0.46; 95% CI 0.33 to 0.64) had lower odds of having challenges with at least one barrier to healthcare. However, living in rural areas increased the odds of facing at least one barrier to healthcare (AOR=1.87; 95% CI 1.27 to 2.77). Conclusions This study has demonstrated that both individual and contextual factors are associated with barriers to healthcare accessibility among women in Papua New Guinea. To enhance the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals 3.1, 3.7 and 3.8, it is critical to deem these factors necessary and reinforce prevailing policies to tackle barriers to accessing healthcare among women in Papua New Guinea.

The Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) Pacific Project works with local government and other stakeholders in nine Pacific Island countries – Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. It seeks to strengthen local democracy and good governance, and to help local governments deal with the increasing challenges of service delivery and urban management in the unique Pacific environment.Human settlement patterns in the region are changing rapidly. The Pacific has traditionally been a rural agricultural/subsistence society, but this is no longer the case. The accelerated pace of urbanisation has impacted significantly on Pacific nations and in the very near future the majority of Pacific Islanders will be found in urban areas. Already over 50% of Fiji’s population are urban dwellers. Rapid urbanisation brings with it unique challenges and opportunities. Local governments are at the forefront of this phenomenon, with the responsibility to manage urban development and the transition from rural areas to cities and towns. Their success or failure to manage urbanisation and provide the required levels of physical and social infrastructure will affect many lives in a new urban Pacific.The project now has three components – the main Pacific Regional Project and two country-specific programmes: the Honiara City Council Institutional Capacity Building Project and the Commonwealth Local Government Good Practice Scheme in Papua New Guinea.

Road infrastructure developments in rural Papua New Guinea (PNG) have not picked up pace due to mountainous and difficult geographical landscape. Hence road accessibility in rural Salt Nomane Karimui (SNK) District of Simbu province is emerged as a serious concern particularly with regard to impact of poor accessibility and mobility on agricultural produce and ability to access public amenities. Governing agencies have plans in place for road connectivity in Karimui region and other parts of SNK district but their attempts remain unsuccessful due to difficult geography and lack of technical data. This study utilized Geographical Information System (GIS) and multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) techniques through Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to develop site suitability model to evaluate mountainous terrain and forest road connectivity in SNK district. The approach looking at in this research is to classify suitability factors into two principle classes’ i.e. Geophysical and Geotechnical influence as principle factors. Relatively important geophysical factors influencing road suitability sites including altitude, slope, river network, road and rainfall data are integrated to generate alternatively suitability map one. Geotechnical factors influencing road suitability sites including Lithology, Soil Texture and Landform are integrated to generate alternatively suitability map two. The final suitability map is produced by integrating the thematic layers of two principle factors and classified into five suitability classes i.e. less suitable, marginally less suitable, moderately suitable, suitable and highly suitable.

Dramatic shifts are occurring in the size, shape and skill of rural health workforces in Pacific island countries (PICs) due to an unprecedented convergence of political agreement, policy commitment, donor support and technical assistance. In particular, the impact of “medical internationalism” is being felt across the Pacific region, with new doctors returning home in far greater numbers than ever before, the majority having graduated from medical schools in Cuba, China and other countries outside the region, in addition to the more typical numbers graduating and returning home from the region's main medical schools in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. With an agreed regional vision of “Healthy Islands” across the Pacific, the main objective of expanding overseas training opportunities for Pacific island medical students has been to correct the widespread centralization and maldistribution of the medical workforce in PICs and improve health access and quality of care in rural areas by deploying the new graduates to outer-island facilities. However, the return of these new graduates in several PICs has demonstrated that additional training is required to equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary to practice safely and sustainably in unsupervised settings. Thus, the development of specific postgraduate programmes has been urgently needed to provide pathways to vocational training and specialization in rural medicine appropriate to the Pacific region. Rocketship Pacific Ltd. (Rocketship) is an international health charity, based in Australia, dedicated to improving health in Pacific island countries through stronger primary care. Rocketship's particular focus to date has been on education and capacity-building for doctors and nurses working in rural communities and outer-island facilities. Since 2015, Rocketship has been working in partnership with the Ministries of Health and other key partners in Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu to design and deliver postgraduate training programmes in the core generalist disciplines family, community and rural hospital medicine. To date, this has resulted in new postgraduate Family Medicine courses being established in Timor-Leste and Tonga; a rural medical workforce support programme being delivered in Vanuatu; and a new Postgraduate Diploma in Rural Generalist Medicine being designed in Solomon Islands. These new programmes, as well as other notable initiatives elsewhere in the Pacific such as the Master of Medicine (Rural) programme in Papua New Guinea, the Diploma and Master of Family Medicine programme in Fiji and the Cook Islands Fellowship in General Practice, are transforming the health workforce in PICs with the potential to benefit island people across the “Blue Continent.” This paper describes the establishment of new postgraduate training programmes in family, community and rural hospital medicine in Timor-Leste, Tonga, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from the perspective of Rocketship, the non-profit organization engaged by each country's Ministry of Health (or equivalent) to provide expert technical assistance with their initiative.

Background: Papua New Guinea (PNG) has undergone a significant health transition, with the prevalence of non-communicable diseases increasing. Many children under 5 years of age suffer from the burden of malnutrition. While wasting and stunting still remain high, children who are overweight and obese are reportedly increasing.Objective: This study reports the prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight, and overweight children under five in PNG and explores potential household and maternal socioeconomic factors associated with malnutrition.Method: Data were drawn from the Comprehensive Health and Epidemiological Surveillance System (CHESS) in PNG. Height and weight were directly measured, and wasting, stunting, overweight, and underweight statistics were determined using the 2006 WHO Standard Growth Standards. Household and maternal factors were assessed with parent interviews conducted by trained data collectors. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to report associations between selected socioeconomic correlates and child malnutrition outcomes.Result: The prevalence of wasting, stunting, underweight, and overweight children was 13.8, 46.5, 18.2, and 18%, respectively. Children from households with food shortage were more likely to be wasted than those from households without such an experience [OR: 1.43 (95% CI: 0.93–2.21)]. Children from the poor quintile were more likely to be stunted than those from the richest quintile [OR: 1.2 (95% CI: 0.79–1.82)]. Other factors associated with wasting included living in an urban vs. rural area [OR: 1.36 (0.77–2.4)], middle household wealth quintile vs. richest quintile [OR: 0.77 (0.38–1.55)], mothers in union with a man vs. mother unmarried or live in union [OR: 0.76 (0.4–1.42)], and male children vs. female [OR: 0.77 (0.53–1.11)]. Factors associated with stunting included residing in urban vs. rural areas [OR: 1.13 (0.8–1.6)], mother in union vs. single mother [OR: 0.86 (0.59–1.24)], and mothers with preparatory/elementary vs. mothers with vocational/college education [OR: 0.15 (0.02–1.01)].Conclusion: An integrated approach is needed to comprehensively address the household socioeconomic factors at the household level, contributing to the improvement of child health and development in PNG.