Comments

Absolutely agree with this critique, thank you. As one with a heavy involvement in the SWP and PLS, I cannot see anything but problems arising from this development. I wonder what the AEs think?

I am currently employed as a Legal Officer in a Govt department in PNG. Research for a current matter around the use of DSIP funding has brought me to this article. Imagine how ecstatic I was when I realized that this informative piece had been drafted by my former high school Business Studies teacher, Mr. Fredrick Guande! I had the pleasure of learning from Mr Guande who has always demonstrated enthusiasm and a passion to see his students develop. He was a source of inspiration for me to question the way our society is managed, as opposed to merely conforming, through seeking different perspectives from similar forums such as Project Syndicate. As a former pupil, I am very pleased to see that you have extended your reach in your continued efforts to educate fellow Papua New Guineas. Thank you for your service, Sir.

The govt of the day must look into such issues and start solving them to contribute to the HDI for this nation, since GDP per Capita is not reflected in such aspects of a nation's wealth, health and well-being. Thank you once again to the authors for the invaluable information.

Gazelle District in ENB is so large that development issues and infrastructure repairs takes long time. Can the district be split with some LLGs to be moved to Rabaul and Kokopo Open? Can the electoral boundaries be reviewed and moved?

Hi Joseph, could you clarify on the new normal life, especially for workers traveling on buses and other vehicles to work. The Covid control measures from the office of controller that would be great.. Thank you.

Great Article Kim … things will pass and your business will once again soar to greater heights !

And thanks also to Ryan for sharing the UNICEF data and agree with you that accessibility, use ability and applicability of data to particular country and community contexts is necessary in order to make the data valuable.

Hi David, thanks for sharing information about the Pacific Data Hub for the Blog readers and agree access to timely data is a critical part of any research activity. It will be great to see this Hub used more and more by researchers, decision-makers and communities in the Pacific. Thanks again, Keren

The motive is to investigate the important question of whether hunger is widespread in PNG. There is a nutritional problem in PNG, but there is also evidence, in this blog and other surveys, that hunger is widespread.

I agree with you

This is so fantastic Justin! Many, many thanks for pushing this vital agenda forward to generate the first global resolution! There are so many dedicated people worldwide who tire of powerful lifesaving knowledge being repeatedly ignored or fobbed off by national governments. So being United for the first time, now that is a very BIG LOUD VOICE!

Excellent points, David. And nice to hear from you again. 100 percent agree and nice to hear about the shifting demand. Hopefully this also shifts the culture around data-sharing and quantitative research too, which may in turn finally encourage a bit more of it! One further point I would add, salient in pandemic times, is that by opening up these datasets to anyone in the world, great people will come and work for free! Encouraging the best researchers around the world to turn their attention to the region will only increase the calibre of the work done and the policy dialogue and is something we have been behind on for far too long. Further to what you mention on the great work you have been doing on PDH, I'd also flag to readers that the UNICEF MICS surveys are rapidly adding Pacific countries, the PNG 2016-18 DHS is easy to access through the DHS platform, and there is some neat historical census data for some Pacific countries on IPUMS International. As you mention, getting the HIES and other poverty and labour related products up somewhere as easy to access as these websites is a next important frontier, as is getting finer spatial identifiers in these ones.