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VIRTUAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION AUDITS INDONESIA The Improving Project Delivery (IPD) activity is a DFAT funded initiative managed by DT Global under the Indonesia Australia Partnership for Infrastructure (Kemitraan Indonesia Australia untuk Infrastruktur – KIAT) between the Governments of Australia and Indonesia. Design and construction audits are a key part of the project. With our team leader now in Australia, under direction from him the IPD team contacted our local counterparts to discuss their willingness to trial holding design audit meetings virtually. A pending design audit closing meeting was due to be held with officials in the North Sumatra province. Various approaches were considered, and it was agreed to proceed with Skype. The design audit closing meeting was held on Friday, 20 March 2020. It was attended by the IPD Design Audit team (based in Jakarta and working from home), along with the government staff and national project staff based in Medan and KIAT representatives based in Jakarta. Full video conferencing was available between all participants, as well as document sharing. The connections were stable throughout: freezing and dropping out were not problems. The design audit was successfully completed by the end of the day. An interesting innovation that came out of the meeting was an agreed pause for all Indonesian participants to take a break from the meeting to attend to prayer at the appropriate time at the various locations. Our initial piloting has now expanded to convene a session for Japayura last Friday, 27 March 2020, with each session involving up to 20 participants. Indonesia has 22 Balai (main Directorate General of Highways offices located away from Jakarta) serving all 34 provinces. Current indications are we will be able to serve each Balai that is included in the list of agreed projects. Shared by Vince Crosdale, Team Leader / Senior Highway and Bridge Specialist, on behalf of the IPD Team

Quick comment footnotes: I benefited from several people's advice in writing this. Thank you! After submitting the post, I was sent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/papua-new-guinea-is-not-prepared-4000-nurses-to-strike-over-covid-19-readiness" rel="nofollow ugc">this</a> article from the Guardian about the shortage of PPE in PNG; it is very worrying. The blog represents my estimate of likely issues. I've erred on the side of pessimism in the past (my take on the Global Financial Crisis in the region was also bleak). Given this, here's my take on the best case scenario: the virus is kept out, meaning countries are spared the medical issues. Economic problems are inevitable, but perhaps they might be cushioned by a quickly recovered China, and village social safety nets/subsistence agriculture. Maybe a vaccine comes sooner rather than later. Even then, there will be a need for external assistance: tourism will be down for a long time, and not everyone has access to those safety nets. That's the best case scenario, not the most likely.

Our health system in PNG is weak and fragile. Deploy more health professionals, do more awareness on GLOBAL PANDEMIC situation COVID-19 basically on preventive measures since we do not have quarantine and isolation centres in PNG to cater for the infected ones and suspect cases.

A very good article. PNG's other borders, with Australia and Solomon Islands, are also places to be concerned about. Australian government assistance in minimising movement across both would be a valuable assistance.

Agree

We should commend the prime minister and his government for putting the people first by declaring SOE as this is the only way for us to prevent the coronavirus... Moreover,for declaring a national fasting and prayer day for God is our only protector who will guide and continue to protect us from coronavirus...

After this 14 days of shut down is up, what would be the next move to continue this fight against the spread of COVID-19 in the country? I just hope that the govt would give directions for a 14 day quarantine/isolation for people travelling into the country from overseas. Given PNG's lack of capacity, technology and funding to fight the spread of COVID-19, we cannot allow room for mistakes to be made at all international ports both on land and at sea.

Some good points made in this post! Among all the challenges, it should also be emphasised that PNG is in quite a unique position among Pacific island countries with the testing capacity at the PNG Institute of Medical Research, which is currently being expanded from Goroka to Port Moresby. The PNGIMR has set up the SARS-CoV-2 testing protocols very rapidly. But it is important to understand in this context that the collection of samples must be done properly and that the diagnostic test is a little more complicated than measuring fever. It must be done at a specialised institution because it requires well working high-tech equipment and well trained technical staff. PNGIMR has both of it but sometimes several runs of a test may be necessary. This may happen in the best lab anywhere in the world. The current situation shows how extremely important it is for countries (governments) to provide continuous adequate funding to its health system, starting from the remote aid post to the high tech diagnostic lab. Essential equipment and well-trained staff cannot be organised overnight. Lastly, transparent and accurate information is essential. Ideally, this should come from people who know what they are talking about. It puts unnecessary additional burden on those dealing with a crisis if they constantly have to fight random fake news spread over social media and posts from people who 'know it better' in spite of a complete lack of expertise or relevant credentials. The latter is of course a global problem...

Thanks Ben for the insights. Charles Campbell Toxinology could be asked to help. You guys did some of the most advanced studies on developing Snake antivenoms, and your guys expertise will help. Especially in tests and experience over the years. We need all the help we can get from our local scientists.

All along, the disaster and emergency officials have been right in advocating on the statement: "The cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of proactive planning."

Some of our people are not taking this situation seriously, we have some people currently in Indonesia and few are kept in Boram hospital for isolation where three people escaped from isolation making it very to hard contain the virus if they are positive. This message goes to all the good citizens, please follow instructions and we keep PNG safe

Scientific workers are worthy of our respect. It is their silent efforts that provide us with treatment methods and better guarantee of our lives.