New UNFPA representative welcomed

A national of Kenya, Sambuli’s experience spans about 36 years, having worked with UNFPA in various capacities in Kenya and Liberia, as Deputy Representative in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and most recently as Representative in Eritrea before arriving in PNG in July.

Minister Maru expressed to the new UNFPA Representative that our first priority is the Papua New Guinea Census 2020, and that PNG will need technical support to deliver this national event successfully as Government does not want to see a repeat of the failures of the last Census.

The UNFPA has vast experiences in the implementation of national censuses around the world and will provide technical support in ensuring data collected, processed and disseminated is based on international set procedures and standards.

Sambuli has also been informed of the need for training programs for young Papua New Guineans to learn and become competent in running successful Censuses in the future.

Census 2020 will be launched by Prime Minister James Marape on the evening of Saturday 17^th August, 2019, in the Nation’s Capital.

Minister Maru said Sambuli will also be instrumental in ensuring that the Demographic Health Survey Report is completed and made available to be presented to Government as soon as possible.

Furthermore, the UNFPA and the PNG Government will work together on a Global Summit on Population Growth.

“We will look at developing strategies to reduce our current population growth rate of 2.8 percent, which is totally unsustainable. We have to look at the experiences of other countries who have had the same problems as we do now and how they have managed to contain the population growth rates in their countries. Mr Sambuli has experiences in many countries including his own country of Kenya where they had similar problem of unsustainable population growth,” Minister Maru said.

(UN Resident Coordinator, Gianluca Rampolla, Minister for National Planning Richard Maru and UNFPA Representative Ibrahim Sambuli)