11 November 2013

Building the capacity of the Western Highlands Administration

Australia has presented more than K100,000 in IT and office equipment and furniture to the Western Highlands Provincial Administration as part of an initiative to help PNG improve provincial and local service delivery.

Australian Aid’s Western Highlands representative, Simon Kaldy, presented the equipment to Western Highlands Acting Provincial Administrator, Mr Joseph Neng in Mt Hagen.

The new equipment includes desktop computers, laptops, printers, fax machines, filing cabinets, tables and photocopy machines.

Mr Kaldy said the equipment is part of Australia’s broader support for sub-national governance through the PNG Governments Provincial Performance Improvement Initiative (PPII).

The PPII, which is led by the Department of Provincial and Local Level Government Affairs, was established to improve PNG’s service delivery system by working with provincial administrations to strengthen corporate systems.

“Through the PPII, a set of stronger and more assertive provincial administrations is emerging which are better able to plan, budget and report as they implement and address their human resources needs,” Mr Kaldy said.

Australia supports sub-national governance to help PNG ensure funding reaches frontline services and to enhance government accountability for spending.

Australia’s Provincial and Local-Level Governments Program deploys long term advisers and Australian staff in five provincial offices to work with PNG to assist the decentralised service delivery system.

“We work with provinces and districts on improving public financial management systems and data collection capacities for budgeting and spending on key service delivery functions,” Mr Kaldy said.

“We are also starting work with national agencies and provincial administrations to look at a whole of government approach to addressing governance bottlenecks to service delivery.”