Comments

Thank you Kingtau. I just came back from Port Moresby and I am still slowly digesting what I've seen. I agree that the country could be in a much better state now if it had been better managed. I do hope PNG can strictly implement its well-designed regulations and not waste the coming opportunity of the next LNG boom.

Interesting piece, but in my opinion there is a bigger issue that you have completely missed. In my 27 years of being here off and on, I am a constantly amused victim of the "I need K100 and will repay you on Friday". In dozens of cases, never once has it once been repayed. I mean never! Both know its not going to happen when you hand it over. The non-repayment of loans in PNG as a matter of course, no matter what size, is a detriment to the workings of the economy. This is a flaw to the functioning of the loan and market system and produces the situations you outline. The street lenders are only acting on the realities of the credit markets of PNG and are a providing a valuable service, as you point out. So, ironically, Digicel could be teaching a transformative economic behavioural lesson in credit and money management in PNG especially because young people by the hundreds of thousands MUST get on face book every chance they get and have to deal with the realities of managing credits. Believe me, this is a much more powerful life experience forum than any Social Studies or Life Experience course in school. You can't teach that in school. I'm not extolling the virtues of Digicel, its service is lousy but better than the alternatives. It has to deal with the realities it has before it.

Oh yeah I am from PNG. I strongly believe the PALM SWP is a way out forward for PNG. PNG is yet to participate in full but for the start is very much beneficial as an opportunity for exposure especially for the rural majority. Unemployed school leavers and those pushed out of the system (education). I very much support the program going forward. Oh yeah of course issues and challenges are but manageable. Just proper guidelines be in place and proper screening and recruitment and that all required necessary boxes are ticked. I think PNG should benefit big time. And currently PNG has no Liaison Officer and I have expressed an interest through to PNG Treasury Department who through the minister Honourable Mr Ian Ling-Stucky. I am really supporting this PALM SWP Labour Mobility and PNG should benefit big time Thank you so much

Thanks Solomon, appreciate your comment. UNCDF is planning a phased expansion to other Pacific SIDS from 2023 and will include Bougainville in our stakeholder consultations

Hi am Solomon Hanets from Bougainville. Am currently the company secretary for the Autonomous Bougainville Government Business Arm. Insurance is one of the critical and urgent need of us here in Bougainville. Am really interested if a presentation can be done to our government heads of department here in Bougainville. Thank you and I hope we can continue to communicate.

Thanks, Stephen and Sharon for this insightful blog. When it comes to economic growth 19-27, PNG, the country that claimed to be "the mountain of gold and copper, floating on a sea of oil and powered by gas" has little to show for it. Interesting to see a small fishing rents economy like Tuvalu is expected to outperform it in the coming years. PNG leaders should hang their heads in shame and seriously get to work to increase this growth rate, or else face the fate of another lost decade.

Is the Social Mapping & Landowners Identification or SMLI Report for PRL 15 Papua LNG being completed and handed over to the PNG Government through Department of Petroleum/Energy to resume 'Clan Vetting' process of identifying missed out 'Clans' as beneficiaries of the Project?

In a nation with centralized oil revenues like Venezuela; we oil-cursed citizens, we do not live in a nation, only in somebody else’s good business. https://theoilcurse.blogspot.com/2013/04/we-oil-cursed-citizens-we-do-not-live.html

Are we preparing well ahead, when our sustainable resources are not supported for the future. When all our extractive resources are gone! The State is not delivering as a duty of care to it's people and boosting developments that stimulate sustainable growth. It is time for a huge policy shift to where PNG wants to be in its 2050 vision.

Thank you for drawing attention to these very real concerns for Pacific countries. Dr Curtain’s previous blogs about the importance of skills development and balancing net skills gain for Pacific labour forces have also been timely - hopefully this real issue can find good solutions soon.

Thank you for your response to our blog on the employment impact of the Pacific labour mobility programs. As we state in the blog, we are presenting evidence ‘to gauge the impact of these programs’. We do this by comparing the number of workers employed under these programs in both Australia and New Zealand with three benchmarks. These are the number of males and females of working age population of ten sending countries and the number of workers in government employment in three major sending countries: Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga. We conclude that these Pacific labour mobility programs on these three measures in terms of employment have had a major impact. Our purpose was not to look at other measures of success. One obvious measure is the large number of people on this programs, showing by their participation that they want to take up these jobs. This vote of confidence is reinforced by the high return rate (74 per cent) of workers on seasonal work programs. Other measures of benefits have been covered in independent surveys, most recently in 2018 by the World Bank in its report 'Maximizing the Development Impacts from Temporary Migration'. The current Pacific Labour Mobility Survey, which is being conducted by Devpolicy at ANU and the World Bank, is assessing the benefits and impact of workers in the SWP, RSE and the PLS. These net benefits including income gains, welfare and other social outcomes are being measured by comparing migrants with a control group of non-migrants, their households and communities in Tonga, Kiribati and Vanuatu. Preliminary results based on data collected November 2021 to January 2022 showed that Tongan migrants still achieve large earnings gains from working in Australia or New Zealand. Gains appear larger for the SWP than the PLS, and for migrants to Australia compared with New Zealand. Also remittance levels remain an important source of income for sending households, covering mostly basic expenses and education. Yes, more needs to be done to report on the nature and extent of any harmful effects. Two recent Devpolicy blogs deal with the social effects of Pacific labour mobility: Matt Withers on Pacific migrant workers and the social costs of family separation (https://devpolicy.org/pacific-migrant-workers-and-family-separation-20220816/) and Charlotte Bedford, Richard Bedford and Rena Tekanene on i-Kiribati female seasonal workers in New Zealand: lived experiences (https://devpolicy.org/i-kiribati-female-seasonal-workers-in-new-zealand-lived-experiences-20210901/). My three forthcoming blogs on brain drain and related matters also address other side effects of increased overseas labour mobility.

Hi Daniel, the best way to hear about Devpolicy seminars is to sign up to our mailing list: https://devpolicy.org/join-us/