PNG's youth speak out.

Source: http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/profile.aspx?id=Jenny%20Hayward-Jones

The Lowy Institute's Melanesia Program convened its second PNG New Voices conference in Port Moresby yesterday. We assembled a group of interesting and passionate young people with strong views about the future of their country. They spoke on a range of topics across three key themes: Papua New Guinea's relations with its neighbours, responsible sustainable development and new political engagement.

A PNG New Voices panel session on sustainable development (Andrew Gavin/Kate Uvia) 

Papua New Guinea's relations with its Melanesian neighbours are complex. PNG appears to be somewhat ambivalent about its membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. Contributors suggested the government does not involve the people in its management of relations with Melanesian neighbours, leaving some to wonder what the benefits of trade agreements and intra-Melanesia labour mobility agreements are for Papua New Guinea.

The question of support for West Papua was a controversial one. Many Papua New Guineans have sympathies with the independence movement in West Papua but contributors argued the government puts its relationship with Indonesia ahead of popular interest in supporting fellow Melanesians and ahead of lining up with fellow Melanesian Spearhead Group members.

We collaborated with Tanim Graun, a PNG version of the ABC's Q&A program, which looked at the future of the informal economy. Participants quickly renamed the informal economy as the 'people's economy' given that the vast majority of Papua New Guineans are engaged in informal economic activity rather than employed in the formal sector.

Despite the continuing resources boom and forecast economic growth of 21% in 2015, participants acknowledged there would never be enough jobs in PNG's formal economy to support the population. The first shipment of LNG from PNG in the past week has made international headlines but after the construction phase, LNG projects will not deliver the number of jobs required to meet the high expectations of Papua New Guineans.

Increasingly, salaries in the formal sector are insufficient to support the rising cost of living in urban areas in Papua New Guinea, particularly in Port Moresby. Participation in the informal economy, including in activities like selling betel nut (which is now officially banned in Port Moresby) is needed to subsidise the formal economy for many families. Speakers remarked that the systems around transporting and selling betel nut worked better than those for most other goods in PNG. 

The private sector voice was articulate and impassioned at the conference. From more than one contributor we heard that the private sector is bearing the brunt of the apparent decline in educational standards in recent years. Significant investment is required in developing personnel, including those who have graduated from tertiary institutions, in order for them to be fully productive. Some businesses are compelled to buy-in talent or skills from overseas, which has the knock-on effect of putting up their prices. This has impacts in the wider business community.

Suggested solutions included short-term work placements in Australia that could be funded by the Australian aid program in the case of small and medium enterprises (SME); degrees undertaken in Australia could include a year-long work placement to expose PNG students to Australian standards and practices; and private sector peak bodies such as the PNG Chamber of Commerce to be consulted as part of the process of awarding scholarships to identify skills most needed in the labour market.

A strong sense of national identity is often hard to find in Papua New Guinea, where clan, cultural and linguistic identities typically are more important than association with the nation. One speaker, ardent about building national identity, reflected on the factors that made Papua New Guinea unique. PNG is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse nations on earth, with approximately 850 spoken languages. 'Wantoks' (people from the same area or speaking the same language) and large extended family and clan connections are central to society and also provide a social security system where no formal one existed. While these connections were special for PNG, building a national identity would not be possible without higher education standards which allow for better discussions about identity and development.

Reflections on the looming referendum on the future of Bougainville and some unresolved issues from the conflict prompted discussion about the need to prepare for Bougainville's independence, as well as the national identity questions for PNG that would follow what is now an unthinkable prospect for PNG authorities.

Much is expected of PNG's young people. Yesterday's discussion proved that the country's future leaders are already thinking about how to change the country.

Image courtesy of Andrew Gavin.

Social/Community Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

PNG NEW VOICES CONFERENCE

Port Moresby, 29^th May 2014

National Research Institute Conference Room

Plenary Session:  Responsible sustainable development.

Speaking Topic: Social/Community Entrepreneurship and Innovation 

A Talk by Reuben Mete

PNG Consulate-General HE Sumasy Singing;

Retired General Jerry Singirok;

Organizers of the event – Lowy Institute and National Research Institute;

Dignitaries;

Moderator Mr. Paul Barker, Executive Director of Institute of National Affairs in Papua New Guinea; and

My fellow Leaders of Papua New Guinea.

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak at this conference today. This morning I do not wish to be dramatic, but would like to gently draw our attention to an issue that I believe really matters most to our heart–innovation in sustainable communities on a more rural perspective.

Responsible sustainable development is a developing country’s phenomenon and can take us a whole year discussing it. I do not wish to raise my voice in the issue of sustainable developments now and again, all I want is to create PNG, a nation where ‘responsible’ and ‘sustainability’ doesn’t need people to talk about.  The whole reason why we have to discuss this now is I believe human beings are now putting dollars and cents before common sense. Mining industry have been working on sustainable development policies but still have a lot to improve on. The onus, however should not be on investors but on Papua New Guinea to develop own policies and regulations to guide sustainable development.

It is not my intention to justify the level of expectations our rural communities have on sustainable development as many have lag behind basic developments.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the village where I came from we usually walk eight hours even to date to access basic services such as health, education and manufactured goods.

Background

We recently saw the launching of the first shipment of liquefied natural gas of the PNG LNG project.   The Elk/Antelope Gulf LNG and Stanley Gas projects are also coming up. We got Solwara 1 deep sea mining project being the latest to join the mining industry. All of these new projects as well as the existing ones are anticipated to propel our economy.

PNG has a population estimated to be a little over 7 million. Despite significant resource wealth from minerals, oil and gas, forestry and fishing, the vast majority of our population still lives a precarious subsistence farming existence with little or no access to the provisions of a modern state such as education, healthcare, sanitation or infrastructure such as roads.

The feeling is that if they are giving the miner the gold from their land, they are expected gold in return – gold in the form of hospitals, schools, compensation for their customary land.

In his speech to the 30th Australia Papua New Guinea Business Forum and Trade Expo,  Cairns Australia, Sam Koim, Chairman of the Task Force Sweep says and I quote - “I have however noted that globalization has not only marked a new phase in the development of capitalism in our country, it has accelerated the pace of social change. It has infested the desire of individuals and groups to amass wealth. What globalization has not done, among the developing nations such as ours, is the attitude - the desire for capacity building, entrepreneurship, enterprise, productivity, critical knowledge-leadership qualities, hard work, competitiveness, introspection with regard to developing indigenous knowledge and technology. It has robbed the developing nations the traditional culture of independence in productivity, communal efforts at development, crafts and guild production, disorganized the traditional agricultural and production systems that hitherto ensured food on the table of every Papua New Guinean and has rather diverted attention of the people to importation of finished goods, service industry and established the culture of consumerism, dependence and luxury.”

Social Enterprise

Watut River Development Limited (WRD) is a not for profit 100% locally owned social enterprise aiming to add value to the lives of every Papua New Guinean by providing high quality water supply and sanitation at an affordable cost. Given the reality that 4.2 million people in Papua New Guinea do not have access to clean water supply system; WRD has identified the only 30% of the entire 7 million population has access to clean water system and sanitation.

Building infrastructure is a major issue for the Papua New Guinea Government as it takes responsibility for the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure in difficult terrain which is high.  The government and the Papua New Guineans believe that if entire infrastructure plans were implemented it would be unaffordable.  Although foreign investments and donor funding was highly sort after, there was some capacity within Papua New Guinea to provide affordable Water Supply and Sanitation and this is where WRD comes in to play.

We believe that rural and remote communities needed to see more of the benefits of national economic growth, and resource sector-driven growth and we believe we can achieve this by providing quality Water Supply and Sanitation to every Papua New Guinean in a little way we can. Big problem have big solutions too. If I don’t give back to my communities, I wonder who will be able to give back to his or her communities. We need you, you can join us and that is why I come here for.

We are now working on to upscale our programs to service the entire Papua New Guinea population through our Lutheran Youth Network. Which has well over 500,000 youth membership untapped and that is the big advantages we now have to enhance our program going rural. We do not believe in getting donor funding assistance but we believe in providing opportunities and powering local Changemaker to bring change back to their communities. Local problems have local solutions and thus needs people within to drive that change that they themselves wanted to see.

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

My participation in this information pool through ICT has had a lot of benefits to me as a person and also to others through the organization. I believe with ICT, we cannot find remoteness/ rural and isolation as Technology help us build a better World.

The media landscape is now changing rapidly with the arrival of social media. It also presented an opportunity for everyone to get their message to public sphere. I have to thank Digicel for its monopoly service in this rural communities include mine where we usually walk to hours uphill to access its crystal clear coverage’s and have access to ICT.

Conclusion

As I come to a close of my talk, I hope you’d appreciate some contributions our new generations have been doing. In so doing, I have drawn only the social or community entrepreneurship and innovations from my past experiences to share some lights to your thought that Papua New Guineans have potentials to help reaching the unreached and touching the untouched. We should now give the people access to learn for living, than they can make change in their communities themselves. I am glad to say here that the process to do so has already begun.

Thank you for listening.

God Bless you all.

  

Biography

Reuben Mete is the Director of the Youth Desk of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea. He is also the President and CEO of the Union of Watut River Communities Association Inc and Managing Director of Watut River Development Limited, a social enterprise that works in partnership with Morobe Mining Joint Venture to provide clean water and sanitation supplies to rural communities.

Reuben was previously a Spark* Changemaker and President of the PNG University of Technology Morobe Students and Staff Association. Reuben strongly believes that Papua New Guinea needs to invest developing sustainable rural communities where every individual has access to basic health and education services and a reasonable income.

All views expressed on this paper are the opinions of the individual   author and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion or position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea.