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In Papua New Guinea, women are already leading in everyday life—through churches, markets, families, and community work. Their leadership is on trust, respect, and relationships within wantok systems. Women are already leading in PNG, but what they need is recognition, support, and inclusion in decision-making.

Hi Vincent, thanks so much for your comment - glad you liked the blog. There is definitely lots to say about how women navigate the challenges of male-dominated spaces and you're also absolutely right that there are so many people leading and influencing change in positive ways across the Pacific - we just looked at a small selection. Aidan Craney is doing some great work on youth leadership, which you might like to take a look at. Cheers, Lis

I would not say that the 'best' indicator of performance is the crediting rate. The crediting rate is a lagging, discretionary figure declared by the board (Superfund). It is a policy decision, not a pure market reflection of the funds performance. It is no secret that both funds have been buoyed over the past decade by an unhealthy concentration of risk. Both funds are heavily reliant on BSP dividends and PNG Government Treasuries (T`Bills and GIS). This creates a circular dependency as the funds' performance is tethered to the very government debt they are forced to buy because of FX shortages. True performance should instead be measured by Risk-Adjusted Return on Assets (ROA). The crediting rate model is outdated; most Australian supers have scrapped it for the benchmarking model, as the article suggests.

This is a remarkable article that uses real stories from Pacific women to show how leadership truly works. The four key points are clear and easy to follow. To make it even stronger, it could talk more about the challenges women face from male-dominated systems, include voices from more Pacific countries, and look at how younger generations are being brought along. Overall, this is a helpful and important piece for anyone working on leadership and development in the Pacific

Great article. Please get in touch with me, i would like to share some white papers on super annuation reforms in PNG, written in association with ASFPNG. My mobile number is 7494 1110. Regards, Eric Kramer

This survey report was for 2012. It would be interesting to have another socio-economic survey done for the Province since the road connectivity from Morobe/Gulf (Epo) and the Highlands region/Gulf (Kikori) linking the main trunk line to Port Moresby and the Central Province.

Interested and I will be good for me to register. thanks 🙏🙏

PNG needs onshore facilities to develop it's LNG resources and sale PNG brand. Stop this trade of raw materials sale. Go down streaming now or never.

All reasons for the delay mentioned do not make sense at all. Could be for other known reasons. Court Orders!! Let's be honest, truth will prevail.

Thank you for highlighting this important aspect in the context of monitoring and resolving social and environmental issues of extractive industry initiatives. Industry experience is clear on long term tracking down of social and environmental changes and impacts. This is undisputed and should be firmly in place within the sponsoring organization itself. I would like to share some relevant issues in this note. As the article raised, the social assessment process is taking place shy of institutionalization of outcomes. More importantly, critical “social” issues are not followed up rigorously including the implementation of remedial actions. Conversely, it appears that environmental impacts identified are financed by the company itself. However, it is indeed questionable whether the strategy to identify environmental impacts is transparent and more importantly whether corrective actions are satisfactorily implemented by the sponsor under its user pay principle. Let me point out this issue the way I have understood from the article. Quote “Communities living around projects like Porgera and Ok Tedi know that conflict, inequality and environmental damage remain stubborn features of the sector“(emphasis added). This statement reveals that environmental issues are not managed well either. My second issue is the dichotomy in conducting social vis-à-vis environmental monitoring; the former is vested in consultants (with the implementation responsibility in government) whilst the latter is within the sponsoring company. Surely, the playing field here is unequal. Why is it not possible to entrust the responsibility of correcting social issues in the company itself in collaboration with community representatives? Third, whether results of social and environmental impacts of mine operations are accessible to the affected community? As is rightly stated in the article, reports prepared by consultancy teams are difficult to access. Most likely, the affected community is unaware of findings of social and environmental assessments and impacts. It is most probable that community stakeholders are not involved in monitoring and impact assessment. Our experience in a few developing countries suggests that the implementation (and adoption of remedial measures) of social management plan through inter departmental committees does not work well. Like environmental assessments, the social assessment and implementation of recommendations should rest within the company itself. The assessment responsibility lies in a team of specialists who are site based with a strong community knowledge. It is better if the assessment unit has community representation. The team works independently with the responsibility of sharing its findings with the parent company and the top government bureaucracy entrusted with mining supervision. It is important that results of assessments and impacts should be disseminated and not safely stowed away to prevent dust gathering. The dissemination of information is important that will make affected communities get to know the status of mine, the direction social and environment issues are unfolding and what mitigation measures are required. Making information public offers a two-pronged advantage. The community will pressurize the company to implement mitigation actions if the sponsor has failed to address critical issues. In parallel, it will educate the community about the benefits and impacts of the mining operations and the way companies are supporting their livelihoods, which is to the advantage of the company itself. Another issue to ponder in this context is where the Corporate Social Responsibility is? Most mining companies have a de facto social responsibility to put part of their profits back into the community by way of social support program. Apparently, this is not working as desired in the mining sector. It is also necessary to conduct continuous monitoring of the state of social and environmental issues. Continuous monitoring is different from cross sectional research or assessments conducted by consultants at specific points in time. Monitoring on long-term basis helps track changes and impacts of social and environmental management and community’s response to implementation issues. It will also monitor response to mitigation measures adopted. Information that we currently gather through a continuous monitoring program installed within the Dasu Hydropower, a mega project in Pakistan, is unparallel. The program continues to isolate all impacts and its direction at the early stage of emergence, making ample opportunities to correct as issues are unfolding. Some issues are unlikely to be identified through cross-sectional research and certainly not through cross-sectional consultancies. Finally, long-term research and continuous monitoring of mining operations cannot be compromised which are becoming industry’s best practices. The sponsoring organization should take ownership for assessment as well as the execution of corrective actions in a transparent manner.

This is a very nice piece, for two reasons. It historically traces the conflict, identifying a continuity that makes clear the futility of trying to impose a foreign property regime, rational as it may be perceived to be to non Papua New Guineans. It also shows that this continuity is not random historical occurrence (by, say, local interests' heterogeneity) but by the consistent (and growing strength) of a local consensus that has proven to be, so far, unshakeable. Customary ownership remains strong despite SABL and ILG manipulation in Port Moresby. One can safely assume that the interests behind these latter schemes remain strong. The unanimous passing of the Customary Land Tenure Act 2026 augurs against a purely or even mostly extractive outcome to this historical conflict. A logical extension to this research, however, would be to address the question: why have successive governments failed to implement a comprehensive registry of customary land ownership? Up to 2005 - maybe even 2008 - technology may have been part of the explanation. Thereafter, this constrain has grown to be increasingly weaker, even untenable. The technology required for a "national clan registry, a customary lands registry, clear rules for leases and subsidiary agreements and transparent, accountable decision-making processes" is not only available, but PNG now has local firms and experts capable of implementing such tasks in a locally sustainable manner. A failure to address this question as of yesterday, though, may still indicate a degree of policy capture misaligned with both the development needs of PNG, and the institutional instruments at hand. In this policy area, the problem is now clearly not one of capacity, but of capability: the ability to act upon existing resources to overcome historical yet still potent political economic constraints. The proof is (will be) in the pudding.

I thank Stephen Howes for giving his views on the Pacific Banking Guarantee Act 2025. Any discussion of this Act takes us into the somewhat opaque world of risk mitigation and management in the modern banking industry as shaped by the regulations that are now in force in Australia and New Zealand. A key event in the modern development of contemporary banking regulatory practice was the Iceland banking crisis of 2008. The root cause of the crisis was the failure of the regulator to rein in the irrational exuberance of the Iceland banks. The crisis was overcome by the Iceland legislature and regulatory authorities protecting and preserving the deposit accounts of ordinary Icelanders and shifting the losses to external (i.e. non-domestic) account holders, mainly located in the UK and the Netherlands. The foreign depositors took the hair cut. Following the Iceland crisis a key development in the contemporary regulatory scene is the regulatory authorities outsourcing of regulations. Practically speaking this means that the banks must now exercise prudential regulation over and against themselves. Stiff penalties are applied for breaches, howsoever caused, by the regulatory authorities, including loss of banking licence. Accompanying the development of comprehensive regulatory schemes is the implementation of deposit insurance schemes – the APRA Financial Claims Scheme (FCS). The APRA web-site provides details of the classes of depositors covered by the scheme and the maximum amount covered by the scheme. The Australian Government guarantees deposits up to AUD 250,000 per account holder, per institution through the FCS. This protection applies to banks, building societies, and credit unions incorporated in Australia and authorized by APRA. It is automatically activated if an institution fails.  Irrespective of the residency status of an individual account holder deposits held with a foreign branch of an Australian bank are not covered under the FCS. The anomaly which is addressed by the ANZ petition is that the ANZ Pacific Banking Group’s business is conducted under the oversight of the ANZ Group entity which in turn is subject to the comprehensive oversight and self-reporting obligations of the Australian regulatory authorities. The purpose of this regulatory oversight is twofold. On the one hand the comprehensive self-reporting obligations are designed to compel banks to conduct their operations in a prudent manner. On the other hand the depositor insurance provided by the FCS reduces the prudential requirement for the holding of regulatory capital and frees some capital for more productive investments. Providing ANZ with an Australian guarantee for the reimbursement of ANZ Pacific depositors losses does relieve the burden of the ANZ Group having to hold additional regulatory capital. A bank depositor insurance scheme is currently undergoing implementation in New Zealand. Unlike Australia, where the scheme is charged to consolidated revenue, the projected NZ scheme will be based on a fidelity fund to which all banks will contribute in proportion to their risk exposure in New Zealand. A difficult calculation at the best of times. Vailala