Aid Program Performance Report 2015-16

3.Expenditure

Table Total Official Development Assistance (ODA) estimated expenditure in FY 2015-16

Objective	A$ million	% of total ODA
Bilateral
Outcome 1 - Health	87	16
Outcome 2 - Education	65	12
Outcome 3 – Improved law and justice services	25	4
Outcome 4 – Transport	70	13
Outcome 5 - Governance	82	15
Other (including gender, humanitarian, program support, private sector, Incentive Fund, Joint Understanding and Bougainville)	133	24
Sub-Total Bilateral	462	84
Regional and global; other government departments	87.7	16
Total ODA estimated expenditure	549.7	100

4.Progress towards Objectives

This APPR reports on performance against agreed priority outcomes in the Aid Partnership. These are aligned with the three strategic objectives in the AIP as listed below. It draws on Aid Quality Check ratings in 2015-16 to reflect progress against objectives for aid investments.

Table Rating of the program's progress towards Australia’s aid objectives

Partnership outcome	Alignment with Aid Investment Plan objective	Previous rating (outcome)		Current rating
Outcome 1 - Health	Enhancing human development	Amber		Amber
Outcome 2 - Education	Enhancing human development	Amber		Amber
Outcome 3 – Improved law and justice services	Promoting effective governance	Amber		Amber
Outcome 4 - Transport	Enabling economic growth	Green		Green
Outcome 5 - Governance	Promoting effective governance	Amber		Amber
Cross-cutting
Gender equality and women’s empowerment	Cross cutting	Amber		Amber
Disability-inclusive development	Cross cutting	Amber		Amber
Private sector development	Enabling economic growth	Green		Green
Additional assistance
Bougainville	Autonomous Region of Bougainville	Not rated		Not rated

  Green. Progress is as expected at this stage of implementation and it is likely that the objective will be achieved. Standard program management practices are sufficient.

  Amber. Progress is somewhat less than expected at this stage of implementation and restorative action will be necessary if the objective is to be achieved. Close performance monitoring is recommended.

  Red. Progress is significantly less than expected at this stage of implementation and the objective is not likely to be met given available resources and priorities. Recasting the objective may be required.

5.OUTCOME 1: HEALTH

While Australian aid programs in the health sector have largely delivered on intended outputs, the ‘amber’ rating reflects the fact that these programs are not of sufficient scale to impact on performance targets we share with PNG at the national level. The national health sector as a whole has not supported improved results against a number of key indicators, although there was notable variation in performance between some geographic regions, such as between provincial towns and rural communities. Areas where PNG displayed improved performance at the national level included the emergency response to tuberculosis (TB) in Western Province. PNG continued to make progress in its campaign against malaria. However, measles vaccine coverage for children under one year of age dropped from 63 per cent in 2014 to 39 per cent in 2015. The rate of skilled birth attendance worsened, and is off track at 37 per cent in 2015 (compared to 44 per cent in 2014). PNG’s National Health Plan mid-term review concluded the drivers of “sluggish” performance were the lack of investment in workforce and poor prioritisation of financial resources.

Australia joined with China and PNG to launch a trilateral agreement to improve malaria diagnosis within PNG by strengthening laboratory services and research.

Pictured above: Australian High Commissioner to PNG H.E. Bruce Davis, PNG Minister for Health and HIV/AIDS Michael Malabag and China’s Ambassador to PNG H.E. Li Ruiyou launch the agreement.
Australia and PNG’s shared health goal in the Aid Partnership is to strengthen the primary health care system, to improve maternal and child health and to reduce the burden of communicable diseases such as HIV, TB and malaria. We work closely and effectively with PNG national partners including the National Department of Health. Our health programs are implemented bilaterally with the PNG Government and with development partners including the Asian Development Bank, World Health Organization, Global Fund, GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, World Bank, non-government organisations, and the private sector.

In 2015-16 Australia invested approximately $110 million (PGK241.3 million, including Joint Understanding commitments) toward health and HIV outcomes in PNG through investments in financing, procurement, capacity development and service delivery, multilateral partnerships, infrastructure and in-country scholarships. While PNG’s health budget increased to PGK1.567 billion ($646 million) for 2016, many key areas, such as delivery of rural health services, experienced reductions. In 2015, PNG released approximately PGK8 million ($3.3 million) from a PGK40.3 million ($16.7 million) commitment for the emergency TB response.

Australia’s aid program has directly contributed to strengthening PNG’s ability to deliver services. We continued to support PNG to address the critical shortfall of health workers and skills by offering a total of 467 scholarships for nurses, midwives and community health workers in 2015. With our support, almost 700 Papua New Guineans have graduated with midwifery, nursing and community health work qualifications since 2013. Australian-funded clinical midwifery facilitators at all four midwifery schools provided training and mentoring to 365 practicing and student midwives in 2015. Our technical support to the Nursing Council helped to demonstrate that there has been an increase in the overall number of nurses since 2009.

While Australian aid delivered newly qualified midwives, family planning and HIV testing for pregnant women, the national indicators for skilled birth attendance and HIV treatment for pregnant women worsened. In the absence of Australian support we would expect national performance to be lower against the relevant indicators. The mid-term review of the National Health Plan noted that to meet national standards, PNG would require 600-800 midwives, but there are currently only around 500 practising midwives. Although Australia has supported the training of 400 new midwives since 2011, the review notes “this number has barely had an impact on the total stock of midwives for the country. Almost as many midwives have retired, moved out of midwifery, died or been retrenched during this period”.

New infrastructure projects included staff accommodation at Lorengau Hospital in Manus Province. The Rural Primary Health Service Delivery Program (delivered by the Asian Development Bank and half funded by Australia) is on track for the upgrade of 32 community health posts by 2019, with 14 tendered for construction to date. At the PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum in March 2016, it was agreed that Australia would proceed with the redevelopment of the Lae ANGAU Memorial Hospital using Australian funding while PNG pursued options for its co-financing commitment. We are proceeding to implementation based on comprehensive planning and site preparation undertaken to date, and capital works are scheduled to commence in 2017. In the interim, we are funding an expansive program of health infrastructure upgrades, valued at approximately $32 million (PGK77.2 million). This includes the redevelopment of the Lae School of Nursing on the ANGAU campus, and grants to district health facilities to reduce the burden on the hospital.

In 2015 Australia supported PNG’s Health Service Improvement Program to provide predictable and targeted funding to provinces and to improve public financial management. The program made funding available for infrastructure in disadvantaged districts and emergency obstetric retrievals in all provinces. The capacity to efficiently expense funding in some provinces remained low, which limited their use of funding and constrained program outcomes. With our support, the World Bank provided the National Department of Health with evidence-based analysis on critical funding gaps and constraints in the delivery of services.

Australia’s investments in the TB response in Western Province contributed to improving treatment and care at Daru General Hospital. Better clinical management of drug-resistant TB cases has led to an increase of people staying on treatment from around 40 per cent in 2011 to more than 97 per cent by 2016. The percentage of patients dying from drug-resistant-TB in Daru has nearly halved since 2013, to 6.4 per cent in 2015. In addition to our ongoing support, Australia will continue to encourage PNG to seek new sources of external funding for the TB response.

Australia continued to assist PNG to address key health issues including preventing the transmission of HIV. We supported the distribution of 4.8 million condoms, HIV testing for more than 115,000 people (including 22,000 pregnant women) and anti-retroviral therapy for 11,000 HIV positive people in 2015. Our support for people most at risk of HIV increased from 5,800 people in 2014 to nearly 11,000 by December 2015, consistent with our approach of maintaining our focus on most-at-risk populations while investments in HIV progressively shift to PNG Government responsibility. Our health investments contributed to gender equality, with our support to Marie Stopes International and the NGO Susu Mamas contributing to 2,734 women accessing rural outreach services, 28,344 women attending urban health services and the delivery of 14,368 long acting and permanent methods of family planning in 2015. Our assistance to the PNG Development Law Association provided legal assistance to survivors of family and sexual violence and counselling for sexual assault. In a first-of-a-kind partnership, in January 2016 Australia joined with China and PNG to launch a trilateral agreement to improve malaria diagnosis within PNG by strengthening laboratory services and research.

Outlook

In line with PNG’s National Health Plan 2011-2020, Australia’s focus will remain on strengthening the primary health care system to improve maternal and child health, and to reduce the burden of infectious diseases and family and sexual violence. While the program has delivered results as expected, it needs to refocus monitoring and evaluation to look beyond activity outputs and to track the impact of investments on health outcomes and health policy. A mid-term review of the Health Capacity Development and Service Delivery program and a sector investment plan will inform future investment in areas including health financing and public financial management. In recognition that it is the PNG Government’s responsibility to adequately resource and manage a responsive and sustainable health system, Australia is moving towards supporting the development of core public health capacity and away from direct support to service delivery. However, reduced PNG Government funding to the health sector combined with decentralisation is likely to increase the pressure on district administrations to deliver health services.

6.OUTCOME 2: EDUCATION

Australia’s PNG education program, as agreed in the Aid Partnership, is moving towards a greater focus on the quality of education, the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector and provincial level assistance. Under the previous Partnership for Development, Australia and PNG agreed to pursue significant measurable progress towards the achievement of Universal Basic Education. While progress against outcomes has been slower than anticipated, there have been measurable gains in a year when PNG’s education funding was severely impacted by its budget deficit. In 2015-16, the Australia Awards program continued to support more than 1,160 students to study in Australia and in PNG. We more than doubled the number of active Australia Awards alumni, many of whom contribute to the economic growth and prosperity of PNG. In other areas, our assistance helped the PNG Government to achieve incremental improvements in net enrolment rates and the gender parity index in schools. This, and the fact that our programs are not of sufficient relative scale to impact on the performance targets we share with PNG at the national level, is reflected in the ‘amber’ rating.

Australia completed 150 classrooms, 55 teachers’ houses and 57 ablution blocks, benefiting more than 5000 girls and boys.

Pictured above: Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop opening new classrooms at Kilakila Primary School in Port Moresby in November 2015.
The PNG Government allocates approximately nine per cent of the national budget to education, with a significant proportion of this allocated to school fee subsidies. Australia is the largest donor to the education sector, supporting early childhood, basic, secondary, technical and higher education. In 2015, we contributed AU$65 million (PGK157 million) – around eight per cent of the total education budget – toward basic and higher education activities ($34.6 million or approximately PGK83.7 million) and Australia Awards ($30.4 million or approximately PGK73.5 million) to support better access to school, improved quality of education and stronger employability for young people.

Increased school enrolments continued to generate demand for additional school resources. An additional 133,000 girls and boys enrolled in school, against our AIP performance benchmark of 155,000. The basic net enrolment rate increased from 84.2 per cent for 2014 to 88.4 per cent per cent in 2015, exceeding our target of 80 per cent for 2015-16.

Australia contributed to greater access to school by completing 150 classrooms, 55 teachers’ houses and 57 ablution blocks in line with PNG Government specifications in 2015-16. This has benefitted more than 5,000 girls and boys and has exceed the performance benchmark of 30 new or refurbished buildings as noted in outcome 3.1 in Annex B.

There has been some progress in increasing the proportion of girls enrolling in basic education in relation to boys, with the gender parity index in 2015 of 0.89 compared with 0.88 in 2014. Girls still drop out of school earlier than boys, due to a range of factors in and outside the school system, and the imbalance grows as they progress in the schooling system. Despite this, our efforts contributed to an increase in the gross enrolment rate (GER) for girls in primary to 82 per cent, exceeding our AIP benchmark of 80.5 per cent for girls under Outcome 3.3 in Annex B. The GER for boys in primary reached 92.4 per cent in 2015, falling just short of our target of 93 per cent.

Australia provided ablution blocks in schools and hygiene behaviour training to address barriers to girls remaining in school. We also assisted PNG to assess its gender inclusion policies and practices in teacher colleges. With our assistance, 40 elementary trainers graduated with a Bachelor of Early Childhood from the Queensland University of Technology, equipping them to support PNG’s new elementary teacher training requirements.

In the higher education and TVET sectors, Australia supported more than 1,100 awardees to study in Australia and in PNG in 2016, with a focus on ensuring that women have equal opportunity to study. PNG is one of the largest scholarship programs globally for the Australian Government. Our investment is focussed on ensuring that women have equal opportunity to study and for the past three years we have met a target of 50 per cent of scholarships being awarded to women.

The Australia Awards program develops skills and knowledge; builds enduring people-to-people, country and professional links; and influences positive change. Our investment in scholarships has contributed to building a qualified PNG workforce, filling critical human resource gaps (particularly in the rural health workforce) and supported good leadership in the public and private sector. A 2013 tracer study of alumni found awardees are in more senior roles and have greater influence in their professions and communities.

We offered Australia Awards to 458 Papua New Guineans to study in 2016 to improve their qualifications in a range of fields in both PNG and Australia. Sixty three per cent (287) were awarded to women. Five per cent (11 women and 11 men) identified with having a disability.

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  We offered 124 Awards for study in Australia, primarily at Masters level across a variety of sectors. Nine awardees (three women and six men) identified as having a disability. Sixty five (52 per cent) were women. Fifty (43 per cent) were public servants, offered places to study in core skill areas supported by PNG.
  
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  We offered 334 places to study in PNG to help address critical rural workforce gaps in PNG. People were offered opportunities to study for midwifery (15 per cent), community health (35 per cent), nursing (35 per cent) and teacher qualifications (15 per cent). Thirteen awardees (five men and eight women) identified as having a disability. Sixty six per cent (222) were women.
  

The PNG Fellowship short course program delivered 57 awards to leaders from the public sector, health and education training institutions; and project and middle managers across 12 provinces. Participants included 51 public servants, 42 women and 15 to men. Participants received an Australian qualification.

Membership of the PNG-Australia Alumni Association increased to 700 in 2015, an increase of 110 per cent since 2014. There are now seven provincial chapters, with three more soon to launch. The Association, funded by Australia, successfully held more than 50 events in 2015 including 21 professional development workshops and a leadership dialogue engaging with business and government leaders. This represents a doubling of activities since 2014 and 700 per cent increase since 2012.

The Australia Awards program provided eight small grants across six provinces targeting alumni, Australia Awards Pacific Scholarships graduates, people with disabilities and people in remote areas. The grants aimed to strengthen professional skills and advance development objectives. Australia Awards Fellowships awarded 10 multilateral grants (involving 135 fellows including PNG fellows) and two bilateral grants (involving 16 PNG fellows). Priority areas were health, education, humanitarian assistance, disaster risk reduction and social protection, gender equality and empowering women and girls.

In 2015-16 the PNG Government continued to embark on ambitious education reform to address access and quality and financing and management of institutions. In support of this, through advisory support we assisted PNG Government counterparts to:

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  improve the accuracy of enrolment data and distribution of tuition fee free (TFF) funds to schools by supporting the National Department of Education’s information and communications technology and education management information systems to provide robust national data to inform payments to schools
  

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  implement, update and draft key policies and regulations to strengthen quality assurance processes at post-secondary level as well as the policy and management of national skills standards. Our assistance included the update of the policy framework for quality assurance in higher education and TVET. We helped the Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology to develop its first strategic/corporate plan and we helped to prepare a higher education governance manual to support implementation of the Higher Education Act
  
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  update the National Training Policy 1989 and draft the National Training Council (Amendment) Act 2016 and National Training Council Regulations 2016
  
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  develop the Autonomous Region of Bougainville Education Plan, with education governance documents approved by the Education Board to strengthen management, resourcing and planning at the school level.
  

In higher education, Australia and PNG agreed to refocus our priorities in the Aid Partnership commitments to support four focus areas in 2016-2017: quality reforms; facility upgrades; improved management and efficiency; and scholarships and twinning partnerships.

Continued investment in a skilled and technically qualified workforce is important to ensure PNG makes the most of opportunities presented by its economic growth. In 2015 we explored with institutions, government and the private sector in PNG how high quality TVET education could be delivered sustainably. Our consultations with the private sector increased through the Australia-PNG Business Council, Lae Polytechnic Centre of Excellence Reference Group and the Australia Awards and New Colombo Plan programs. In 2016, Exxon Mobil offered to fund seven scholarships through the Australia Awards program, and OilSearch three scholarships. In 2016, General Electric and OilSearch offered to host students for internships through the New Colombo Plan. We supported students at the National Polytechnic Institute in Lae (NPI) to study for an Australian Certificate level III in metal fabrication and welding and two NPI trainers to deliver the course.

A total of 286 students graduated from the Australia Pacific Technical College (APTC) in Port Moresby, with 38 per cent going on to be employed in the private sector and 33 per cent in the public sector. The APTC is currently Australia’s major investment in TVET across the Pacific.

Outlook

Given the current fiscal climate, PNG will continue to face a financial challenge to achieve the goal of free quality education for all. While Australia’s contribution remains modest in comparison to the financial gap, careful targeting of future Australian investments will build upon the trend of incremental improvement seen in recent years.

In 2016 Australia will develop a five year sector investment plan which will guide our support to PNG to implement reforms in the education sector. We will support PNG to strengthen its education system to adequately prepare its population to take advantage of employment and leadership opportunities. This will include targeted support to education financing and financial management; improved quality of basic education; support for institutional linkages; and quality improvements to tertiary training which meet employment and human resource demands, involve greater engagement at the subnational level and further develop private-public sector partnerships.

7.OUTCOME 3: IMPROVED LAW AND JUSTICE SERVICES

PNG’s long-term goal for the justice sector is ‘a just, safe and secure society for all’. Law and justice is a priority sector under PNG’s Mid-Term Development Plan 2 (2016-2017) and the Aid Partnership shared objective is to help achieve PNG’s strategic goal of providing a safe, secure and just society for all.

Australia’s assistance supports our shared interest in stability in PNG. While programs are delivering against effectiveness and efficiency criteria, progress against law and justice objectives has been rated as ‘amber’ because data from PNG Government agencies is not yet available to measure progress against many benchmarks and it continues to be difficult to attribute outcomes to specific Australian interventions. The sector continues to face many challenges, including chronic underfunding, low community trust and difficulties in coordination which affect the delivery of programs.

Our five priorities under the Aid Partnership’s Law and Justice schedule are increasing community safety and security; addressing family and sexual violence; providing effective law and justice services; combating corruption; and building police capacity. We provide assistance through complementary programs delivered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) and Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

The 2015-16 year was a period of transition for our support to the sector. The changes to Australian advisory assistance reshaped the role of AGD officials working through the Strongim Gavman Program (see Outcome 5 for more details). At the same time, the DFAT-managed PNG-Australia Law and Justice Partnership concluded in December 2015 and the new Justice Services and Stability for Development (JSS4D) program commenced in January 2016. There were delays to the planning and approval for new activities under JSS4D as a result of changes to governance structures to reflect the PNG Government’s new Development Cooperation Policy.

Australia supported training for 1,881 police officers (364 women), including for eight of the 12 officers promoted to Assistant Commissioner in 2015.
In 2015-16 Australia invested approximately $83.5 million (PGK201.9 million) in the law and justice sector, including support through other government departments and in Bougainville (see pages 21-23). The PNG Government’s total law and justice sector budget was approximately $530 million (PGK1,281 million) in 2015. Our support contributed to some notable areas of progress towards the five objectives in the Aid Partnership schedule.

With Australian assistance, PNG law and justice agencies built capacity by improving professional and managerial skills and deepening institutional relationships with Australian peers. In 2015, the AGD supported 11 adviser positions in PNG law and justice agencies. After the changes to advisory positions requested by the PNG Government, five positions continued in 2016 in the Office of the Public Prosecutor, supporting individual and organisational capacity and prosecutions in important areas including corruption and family and sexual violence.

The AFP worked with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) to establish a Brief Adjudication Unit in the National Capital District to improve the quality of briefs submitted for prosecution. Following this, the Unit increased the number of matters progressing to the National Court from 18 in 2014 to 117 in 2015. In addition to police specific training, another 2,056 law and justice officials (29 per cent women) benefitted from ongoing technical, legal and leadership training through Australian funded courses for the law and justice sector.

In addition to infrastructure rolled out in Bougainville, Australia supported priority infrastructure including by the transportation and installation of prefabricated accommodation gifted by Exxon Mobil for police housing in Lae and accommodation at Bomana Police Training College. We established the Popondetta Juvenile Holding Cells and commenced the new Manus Provincial Police Headquarters. Together with refurbishment and enhancements to other existing facilities, such as the Badili Police station and Bomana Police College in Port Moresby, these projects helped meet critical infrastructure needs and enable increased access to law and justice services.

The AFP deployed 77 personnel (including unsworn civilian staff and contractors) to Port Moresby and Lae to work closely with counterparts in the RPNGC to improve police capacity, including seven officers in the Major Events/Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) team on capability development activities in the lead up to APEC in PNG in 2018. Australia supported training for 1,881 police officers (364 women), including for eight of the 12 officers promoted to the rank of Assistant Commissioner in 2015. The revised curriculum for Bomana Police Training College, developed with AFP support, was finalised in April 2016. This curriculum and other support helped the 546 recruits (89 women) that graduated from the College in 2015-16, building on the 560 graduates in 2014-15 (83 women). Australia supported the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to develop and deliver human rights training for the RPNGC.

Australia helped victims of violence to receive improved access to justice and protection. In 2015-16 we helped open two new Family and Sexual Violence Units (FSVUs) in Daru (Western Province) and Kerema (Gulf Province). This brought the total number of FSVUs in police stations across the country to 17, plus four Family and Sexual Violence Desks. Since 2009, over 40,000 cases of violence have been reported to established Units and Desks, mostly involving women and children. An evaluation of FSVUs in 2015 highlighted the need for further RPNGC reform, increased resourcing and better targeted donor support for FSVUs to ensure survivors receive appropriate services. The evaluation will help guide the RPNGC’s approach to family and sexual violence and our future support. Australia’s assistance has also helped to develop and distribute family and sexual violence referral guidelines to better connect survivors to services.

To complement this work, other officials working in law and justice were trained on the PNG Family Protection Act and related procedures, such as Interim Protection Orders. Indicators suggest because of the training, the completed Interim Protection Orders increased by nearly 20 per cent to 1,495 in 2015 (1,256 in 2014). The AGD and the AFP continued to work with PNG counterparts to address barriers to obtaining convictions for FSV offences, including workshops on assisting child victims and witnesses throughout the legal process.

Australia supported PNG with key legal reforms including drafting the Family Protection Act regulations and funding a child protection officer (through UNICEF) to work with PNG counterparts on the implementation of the child protection Lukautim Pikinini Act. We assisted law and justice agencies to increase the proportion of women employees in law and justice agencies through implementation of the PNG Government’s Gender Equity and Social Inclusion policy. We also supported PNG’s participation in the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review of its human rights in May 2016.

In early 2016 Australia renewed an innovative partnership with Exxon-Mobil for a community safety adviser in Hela Province who helps to facilitate the delivery of more effective law and justice services. We helped to train 507 Village Court officials on up-to-date information and practices, contributing to a total of 2,142 officials trained by the program (12.5 per cent women), covering 42 per cent of Village Courts (194) in 461 target locations in PNG. Many of these officials had not received training in a decade. This has provided access to better standards of justice for more than one million PNG citizens in those locations. An evaluation of the courses indicated the training provided participants with a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities. After the training, more people accessed Village Courts (68 per cent of respondents in 2014, up to 87 per cent in 2015) and satisfaction had slightly improved (51.5 per cent in 2014 to 54.5 per cent in 2015). We also supported the establishment of provincial land dispute committees in the priority provinces to help improve mediation of land disputes. The community safety pillar of the program is designed to provide better access to justice for people in the priority provinces. Despite the achievements outlined above, for many people, geographic isolation and cost remain barriers to accessing legal services.

Australia continued its strong support for PNG-led efforts to address corruption, including through the DFAT-funded AGD-AUSTRAC Combating Corruption program. The program aims to strengthen financial systems against money laundering, corrupt activity and terrorist financing, and assist PNG in recovering proceeds of crime. Supported by Australia, PNG made substantial progress in 2015-16, passing a suite of laws to establish a comprehensive anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) system. These laws established a new financial sanctions regime, a new AML/CTF regulatory regime for financial institutions and other entities, and strengthened money laundering offences and proceeds of crime measures. As a result of these reforms, in June 2016 the Financial Action Task Force removed PNG from its ‘grey list’. Australia is assisting PNG to increase inter-agency co-operation and implement the new laws.

Our support for Transparency International PNG (TIPNG) and its work on improving accountability and transparency continued. Australia’s Commonwealth Ombudsman continued to support the PNG Ombudsman Commission through its longstanding twinning arrangement to strengthen systems and capacity to oversee governance and leadership of the public service and the PNG Government. Australia also supported the Ombudsman Commission to continue its work with the RPNGC to improve coordination and collaboration on internal investigations into police misconduct. The AFP, TIPNG and the Ombudsman Commission delivered four corruption and internal investigation training programs to RPNGC and Ombudsman officers.

Outlook

High rates of crime persist and the community and businesses have low levels of trust in the police and legal processes. Realisation of long-term improvement in these areas will require the sustained commitment and investment of both PNG and Australia over decades. Australia’s assistance alone cannot bring about these changes. Improvement is likely to be an incremental process and achievements fairly modest. Numbers of police, judicial and other law and justice officials per capita remain very low by international standards and increasingly limited resources will continue to exacerbate these issues. The PNG Government’s budget constraints can be expected to limit the ability of agencies to deliver core services. PNG’s decentralisation agenda could see further resources move away from national agencies. Law and justice agencies will play a role in ensuring the safe and secure delivery of elections next year, which will require extra funding and attention, and the sector is working on responding to the recent findings from the Universal Periodic Review into human rights in PNG. Following recent successes in anti-money laundering, the focus will be to ensure new systems and legislation are implemented and enforced. A challenge to implementing Australia’s assistance will be to set strategic priorities in a timely and coordinated fashion.

8.OUTCOME 4: TRANSPORT

Australia’s support to PNG’s transport sector is part of a 20 year strategy to strengthen the sector’s contribution to PNG’s development. It is also a key component of Australia’s aid for trade investments in PNG. The transport infrastructure program’s ‘green’ rating reflected the successful delivery of a range of high impact projects and capacity building during 2015.

Properly planned and prioritised maintenance and rehabilitation of existing transport infrastructure underpins PNG’s economic and social development. Transport infrastructure provides access to trade and employment opportunities, and to health and education services. During 2015-16 Australian support to PNG’s transport sector was valued at $70 million (PGK163 million). Our support covered three main components: land transport; aviation and maritime safety and security; and agency performance and accountability. Australia’s transport strategy directly supports the PNG Government’s priorities as set out in the National Transport Strategy 2011-2030 and Medium Term Transport Plan 2 and is guided by the objectives agreed in the Aid Partnership.

During 2015 Australia funded the maintenance and upgrading of approximately 1,400 km of PNG’s 8,700 km national road network. This was lower than the 2,125 km maintained in 2014, reflecting the agreement under the Aid Partnership to transition towards the delivery of larger, more complex projects. Key areas of focus included the construction of four bridges in Oro Province, which will improve access to social services and contribute to economic growth for around 90,000 people; ongoing road maintenance in Bougainville; and a long term maintenance contract in the Eastern Highlands. A scoping study to upgrade the Ramu Highway under the Joint Understanding was completed in late 2015. Substantial progress was also achieved on the upgrade and sealing of the road from Momote Airport to Lorengau Market in Manus Province which is on schedule for completion in late 2016.


Our maintenance of around 400 km of Bougainville’s road network directly employed about 10,000 locals in 2015, ensuring strong local support for road works and injecting much needed money into the economy.
Australian support for improved road asset management systems enabled PNG to upgrade asset databases with quality assured information on the condition of the road network. PNG’s Department of Works used the system to inform a more targeted and coordinated 2017 budget submission. The system has also allowed PNG to commence development of a multi-year asset management strategy, which will help to improve the targeting of PNG’s limited resources towards priority projects. The work undertaken to improve PNG’s road asset management system indicates progress towards improved planning of infrastructure, in line with targets in the Aid Partnership. This reflects the success of the program’s efforts to improve agency performance, which has been underpinned by Australia’s strong focus on sectoral governance and capacity building.

The program has also supported PNG to improve its compliance against international standards in aviation and maritime safety and security. With respect to aviation safety, Australia funded a project to introduce satellite navigation capability at 31 airports across PNG; the introduction of a new very high frequency telecommunication system to better monitor domestic and international flights; and support for upgrades to PNG’s air traffic management systems. With respect to maritime safety, in May 2016 PNG launched a new K8.9 million Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. Developed with Australia’s support, the system will improve radio network coverage across all of PNG’s waters.

Gender was also a strong focus for the transport program. We updated the Aid Partnership transport schedule to include a target to increase the inclusion of women in the planning, design and delivery of transport infrastructure. In 2015-16, the program supported PNG transport agencies to implement PNG’s Gender Equity and Social Inclusion Policy, including by sponsoring a female transport official to undertake an accelerated executive development program. This culminated in the official’s selection for a leadership role at the 42^nd APEC Transportation Working Group meeting in PNG in early 2016, indicating progress against the Aid Partnership benchmark.

Outlook

While the program has achieved a number of objectives during 2015, the 2016 year is likely to be challenging for the transport sector overall due to PNG’s budget constraints. In 2016, the PNG Government appropriated PGK1.21 billion ($421.9 million) to the PNG transport sector in its annual budget, a decrease of approximately 18 per cent from the 2015 budget. This will challenge the objectives PNG has set for itself in the sector, in particular its goal to reinstate 75 per cent of its overall national road network to a ‘good’ condition. To support PNG in addressing this financing gap, Australia’s advisory support will increasingly focus on infrastructure financing, including efforts to promote stronger private sector engagement. Improved efficiency in the allocation of resources towards priority projects is also required. While coordination within the transport sector is strong, this will necessitate closer engagement with central agencies and the PNG National Executive Council to ensure this translates into funding for priority projects.

9.OUTCOME 5: STRENGTHENED GOVERNANCE

Nearly all Australian aid activities include components aimed at improving governance either directly or indirectly. During 2015-16, Australian support for strengthened governance in PNG (totalling approximately $81.63 million or PGK196.1 million) was delivered through: the Economic Public Sector Program; Provincial and Local Level Government Program; Electoral Support Program; the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct; Strongim Pipol Strongim Nesen (SPSN); Church Partnership Program (CPP); Kokoda Initiative; twinning between PNG and Australian departments; and the Strongim Gavman Program (SGP). Many of the programs transitioned on 30 June 2016 to a new facility to consolidate our governance investments.


With Australia’s support, the Tanim Graun Q&A TV program screened a series of public policy debates to a viewing audience of 1.5 million people in 2015-16.
The ‘amber’ rating for the governance outcome largely reflects Final Aid Quality Check (FAQC) reports, which indicate investments have performed adequately, with some significant achievements, but overall have achieved some of their original goals. While relevant and in most cases effective, investments required improvement in areas including efficiency, monitoring and evaluation, and sustainability. This is due in part to programs evolving with shifts in PNG and Australian policy, such as the focus since 2015 on district engagement. Support was delivered in a complex environment, as PNG continued to face challenges including poor accountability for public expenditure and service delivery outcomes, and a lack of service delivery and revenue collection capacity. Worldwide Governance Indicators point to flat or small changes in three of six measures – perceptions of governance effectiveness, rule of law and control of corruption – between 2004 and 2014.

‘Effective governance’ is the shared goal of PNG’s governance priorities as set out in its planning architecture including Vision 2050 and the Medium Term Development Plan 2 2016-2017. Our Aid Partnership objectives are to support core government functions, private sector development (see separate cross-cutting section on page 20), civil society and community and leadership and coalitions. The progress against these objectives is set out below.

Australia provided high level technical advice to key national agencies such as the Department of Provincial and Local-level Government Affairs (DPLGA) to deliver on PNG’s high-profile decentralisation priorities, including implementation of the District Development Authority (DDA) Act. A significant achievement has been supporting DPLGA’s lead role in developing Provincial Service Delivery Functional Determinations, which are the key instruments that will give effect to the DDA Act by describing the functions of provincial governments, local level governments and DDAs. Our assistance to the National Economic and Fiscal Commission helped to deliver provincial and district expenditure review and cost of service studies to inform the national budget, which is critical in determining the level of funding required to deliver basic services in a given area of PNG.

Also at the sub-national level, Australia provided technical assistance in six agreed districts through the employment of highly skilled and experienced Papua New Guinean advisers. The advisors supported the establishment of DDAs in those districts and implementation of the DDA approach on the ground. Their sophisticated understanding of opportunities and challenges at the district level – and these can vary district to district – is helping to shape Australia’s increasing support for PNG’s decentralisation agenda into the future. Australia also tested innovative approaches to accountability at the national and district levels.

A pilot activity showed that Papua New Guineans are willing to use mobile phones to express their views on service delivery at the local level through public opinion surveys. Public servants also demonstrated a willingness to speak out against corruption through the Phones Against Corruption project. Under this project, funded by Australia and delivered by the United Nations Development Programme and the PNG Department of Finance, more than 21,753 SMS messages were received from 6,157 different users by December 2015. Two public officials have been arrested for fund mismanagement of more than US$2 million (PGK6.3 million). Five more are waiting for court decisions, and approximately other 250 cases are being investigated.⁹

Australia supported PNG’s preparations to host APEC 2018 through the placement of two PNG Government interns at the APEC Secretariat in Singapore. The internships provided a broad overview of the areas that PNG could develop and implement as APEC 2018 Chair. Our electoral support increased ahead of the 2017 PNG elections. Our engagement with the PNG Electoral Commission assisted to cleanse the electoral roll, which included removing duplicate entries, and map critical focus areas for election delivery in 2017.

In response to the PNG Government’s new regulations on the employment of foreign advisers in PNG, Australia made changes to the SGP in 2015-16. Fifteen adviser positions in the PNG departments of Finance, Transport, Treasury, and Justice and Attorney-General ended on 31 December 2015. Seventeen SGP advisers working in technical and operational roles continue to work in PNG agencies. Australia worked with PNG through a Joint Working Group to discuss future advisory support, including donor coordination. We maintained institutional linkages between Australian and PNG Government departments through twinning arrangements. For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics assisted the PNG National Statistical Office to release the PNG Gross Domestic Product estimates 2006-2013 in March 2016. More than 100 technical advisers, who work under contract for the broader Australian aid program, are continuing in their roles and are signing code of conduct agreements with PNG counterpart agencies.

A key investment in governance is the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct, targeting future bureaucratic and political leaders. The Precinct supports the PNG Government’s ambitious program of leadership renewal within its public service at the national, provincial and district levels. Working with the key partners, the University of PNG and the PNG Institute of Public Administration, the Precinct performed as expected in 2015-16. It has delivered courses to more than 1,100 PNG students since February 2015. Of these, 170 also completed four diploma courses. Design concepts for new Precinct buildings were approved and tenders for construction began to be awarded in 2016. Across the total Australian aid program we trained 2,640 women and 4,051 men in the public service in core skills (6,691 total), against the performance benchmark of 6,680 for 2015-16.

In 2015-16 SPSN completed the delivery of projects and focused on monitoring and evaluation of the impact of activities. The nation-wide partnership aimed to enable civil society, together with the state and others, to better meet the needs and priorities of men, women and children in communities across PNG. It delivered positive outcomes, benefiting more than 92,000 people and involving more than 400 civil society organisations and 300 grants in 87 districts since 2009. The implementation and monitoring of the wide spread of projects has been a challenge, with mixed success in capacity building.

The CPP largely delivered its intended results to strengthen the capacity of PNG’s seven mainline churches for effective service delivery and to give a voice to poor and marginalised communities across the country. The PNG Government modelled its own Church-State Partnership on the program, raising the level of engagement between church leaders and government ministers responsible for basic service delivery. A number of key projects were delivered under the Kokoda Initiative in 2015-16. We completed 36 health and education facilities and a further 36 water and sanitation facilities to communities along the Kokoda Track. Moreover, we supported PNG Government agencies – including the Kokoda Track Authority and Conservation Environment Protection Authority – to regulate the trekking industry and protect the environment through funding and technical and advisory assistance.

Outlook

In 2016-17 additional Australian support for PNG’s elections will focus on the operational aspect of election delivery including logistics. We will prepare a new design of the Kokoda Initiative that will better and more flexibly respond to the development priorities of Kokoda Track communities, protect the environment and the cultural and historical heritage of the region and further strengthen the capacity of PNG’s Kokoda Track Authority to keep the track open and safe. From 1 July 2016, a new PNG Governance Facility began delivery of most of our support under one flexible arrangement (whereas previously governance programs were delivered by a range of contractors). This new approach to consolidate the governance program and improve value for money and effectiveness was developed with the PNG Government in 2015-16. A Strategic Management Committee, co-chaired by senior PNG and Australian officials, will provide strong joint ownership and strategic direction on programming decisions.