INTERNATIONAL MINING FOR DEVELOPMENT CENTRE
INDUSTRY, academic, civil society and government stakeholders gathered in Port Moresby last week to discuss the future of resource development and human well-being in Papua New Guinea.
The keynote speech was delivered by National Planning Minister Charles Abel (pictured), who provided participants with an insight into the government’s plans for the next five years and the goals for PNG as part of Vision 2050.
The conference was opened by Australian High Commissioner Deborah Stokes and United Nations Resident Representative Roy Trivedi. Experts presented papers on a range of topics including measuring development goals in resource project impact areas and the collection of statistics in Papua New Guinea.
The conference was organised to share knowledge on connecting natural resource wealth with sustainable human development.
The event discussed some of the issues published in PNG’s second national human development report which posed two problems of measurement.
The first problem concerns how to measure government progress in the achievement of sustainable human development, especially the collection and interpretation of national data.
The second problem concerns how companies responsible for major resource projects measure their own contribution to sustainable human development in areas directly affected by their operations.
Participants discussed the relationship between these problems, considering practical problems of data collection and interpretation.
Participants said they enjoyed the event and expressed the view that only the surface work must continue on the many issues affecting resource development and human well-being in PNG.
The conference was supported by the United Nations Development Program, the Australian High Commission, the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, the University of PNG and the PNG University of Technology.
The International Mining for Development Centre (IM4DC) was established as a joint venture between The University of Western Australia and The University of Queensland in 2011 and is funded by the Australian Government. IM4DC works industry, academia, government, non-government organisations,civil society organisations and community groups to build capacity and alleviate poverty through sustainable mining practices