Papua New Guinea Critical Development Constraints

Papua New Guinea's economic growth has outpaced the majority of economies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific since 2007. Its development challenges, however, remain daunting, and it lags behind other countries in the region in terms of per capita income and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. This raises the question of how the country can make its economic growth high, sustained, inclusive, and broad-based to more effectively improve its population's welfare. This report identifies the critical constraints to these objectives and discusses policy options to help overcome such constraints.

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Food systems are intimately linked to our lives – through the food we eat, our nutrition and health, our livelihoods, jobs, and the environment and natural resources of the planet. The main challenge for food systems is to produce nutritious food for all while preserving our biodiversity and environment and ensuring equitable distribution of wealth. This Food Systems Profile provides a summary of the main food system issues in Papua New Guinea and highlights potential solutions for their sustainable and inclusive transformation. It is the result of a systemic analysis and stakeholders' consultation that was part of a global assessment of food systems in over 50 countries, following a joint initiative by the European Union, FAO, and CIRAD which aims at catalysing the sustainable and inclusive transformation of food systems.

This book is a comparative study of government and public policy in the twenty small states of the Pacific Islands, examining the often tense societal interactions over competing conceptions of public-sector institutions and authority, rule-making, and policy processes.

This edited book presents case-studies and reflections on the role of languages and their analytic study in development practices across four regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific. The authors highlight the importance of conceptual studies of languages and cultures, as well as language choice, for enhancing development practices, demonstrating the value that language analysis and the humanities can add to the already multi-disciplinary field of Development Studies. The chapters draw on the fields of linguistics, human geography, education, diverse economies, community learning, sociology, and anthropology, and topics covered include some significant areas of interest to sustainable human development: education, work, finances, age, gender; as well as a key approach to development (asset-based community development). Chapters on informal adult learning provide opportunities to explore how and why language and linguistic analysis is relevant to development projects. The volume aims to promote collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue and should be of interest to academics, practitioners and students of language and development, and to those working in the field of development globally.

The Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and the Rural Sector report provides a gender perspective of the agricultural and rural sector of Papua New Guinea. The analysis provides an overview of the gender-based gaps and inequalities in access to and control over critical productive resources and opportunities. The methods used involved a two-tier approach where there was the review of literature related to women’s engagement in agriculture and the rural sector as well as, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with selected groups. The findings recognizes that agriculture is key for the country’s economy. However, there remains to be persisting challenges in creating an enabling environment for enhancing women’s participation in food value chains. Additionally, the disparities are obvious in access to and control over key agricultural resources. The rural women even though are major contributors to the economy, their rights are not properly recognized hence, are excluded systematically from access to decision-making. It is thereby concluded that the lack of influential gender sensitive leadership and coordination of the agricultural sector impede the empowerment of rural women and girls in the country. The recommendation include a gender and workplace policy developed for the agricultural sector. Importantly, this publication is a tool for FAO, the Government of Papua New Guinea and other development partners to mainstream gender into programming towards gender equality and the empowerment of rural women in Papua New Guinea.

This book is grounded in the ideology that an alignment between the conceptual and practical understandings of gender equality is a critical component of sustainable development. It draws on six rural case studies to examine the various ways in which gender has been integrated in agricultural research for development projects.

This book illustrates the benefits to be gained from digitally networked communication for health, education and transitioning economies in developing nations (Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea) and developed nations. Growing powers of e-citizenship can help build sustainable futures. This small volume provides a collection of examples and ideas from which the authors hope will help build a wider resource. Understanding how to link everyday lives with global networks in the digital world in ways that add benefit for the world’s people, and the health of the planet, is an ongoing project. IYGU recognises the integral roles of networking and communication systems, as well as interactions between people, near and far, as fundamental for building better futures. The global penetration of digital devices means everyday life, present and future, is inextricably linked with information technologies