Department of Community Development

Women representative from provinces throughout the country are attending this session.

Minister for Community Development Wake Goi officially opened the ceremony this morning, followed by a question and answer session facilitated by the Registry of Political parties.

Minister Goi said, “My Government sees that successfully restoring this women machinery, the National Council of Women will consequently assist my Ministry to address the challenges women face in their everyday life.”

While speaking at the launching of the Department of Community Development’s annual operational plan, Maru urged donor partners to work closely with Government agencies instead of running parallel programs.

“You do not come into our country and run parallel programs and decide for yourself what the priorities are. And you run programs using Government institutions,” said the minister.

“I don’t want 10 experts from somewhere else coming here when there are so many local experts here as well.

And Secretary Anna Solomon says the department will work closely with musicians for this.

The department and the Ministry for Youth Religion and Community Development will be big on public advocacy and awareness on social issues, to curb law and order statistics in the country.

All media platforms will be used towards this effort.

Solomon and Minister Soroi Eoe are recognising the power of music in this area.

“I know this group of young people will help us get the message out,” she said.

This is the first time the council has been separately recognised under the PNG Church-State Partnership Program.

Chairman of PNG Churches Council, Bishop Denny Brag Guka, thanked the government and the ministry for the recognition.

He said with the church providing the spiritual strength and the government the resources, the country can be transformed.

It’s about partnership, honesty, commitment with passion, we can work.

He said the CC’s priority now is the establishment of the provincial council of churches, which the new Minister, Soroi Eoe, alluded to.

Today a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the Department and TTQ producers, Melanesian Multimedia Limited (MML) to begin work on the collaboration.

MML is a subsidiary of popular fast food chain, Big Rooster, which has been the major sponsor of the show for the last four years.

Department Secretary, Anna Solomon, said the program was an excellent platform for them to create awareness among school children.

This was stressed yesterday by Cardinal Sir John Ribat at the opening of the first ever HIV Summit for PNG Christian Leaders Alliance on HIV and AIDS at the Stanley Hotel.

Cardinal Ribat said the PNG Christian Leaders Alliance on HIV and AIDS is an association of heads of churches who have joined forces to demonstrate their leadership support and commitment towards addressing root causes of HIV.

“This includes other related issues or cross cutting issues in PNG,” he said.

Minister responsible, Delilah Gore, revealed this in Parliament today when responding to Kairuku-Hiri MP, Peter Isoaimo, who asked if there was a roll out mechanism in place for the program.

Isoaimo said despite it being a government agenda, the policy was eating into the limited funds of the districts.

“My question is that does the department have a implementing mechanism to roll out this program to benefit electorates or districts instead of us having to stretch further into our limited finding that we should really be using for development purposes?” asked Isoaimo.

The protest is a call to action for the Government to endorse the National Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Strategy 2016-25.

This is a collective voice from all women leaders, youths, civil society groups, churches and development partners in NCD and around PNG.

They’re urging the Government to endorse the ‘National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to GBV in PNG’ and are hoping that the Minister responsible or Prime Minister can address them.

The United States Embassy, the Papua New Guinea Tribal Foundation and the Department of Community Development recently made the announcement.

“This Regional Forum is in response to overwhelming requests from women across Papua New Guinea that the Forum extend its reach outside Port Moresby, this time to the Highlands Region,” says the Embassy in a statement.

Department of Community Development assistant secretary policy and planning, Jacob Manase, said the major hindrance is funding and also the lack of development services like health and education. 

Manase said implementing disability program at the provincial level is also quite a new thing and officers from the districts have emphasised that as well.

However, it is vital to start implementing the PNG National Policy on Disability at the district level, stated Manase.