Activities in Papua New Guinea

July 24, 2014 marked a special day for the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Government of Japan and the rural people of Papua New Guinea who are suffering from the poor road conditions in the country.

JICA together with the Department of Works (DoW) organized a ‘Pilot Project Groundbreaking Ceremony' for the Technical Cooperation Project; The Project for Capacity Development on Road Maintenance in PNG. This project aims at capacity building of DoW's staff (institution, management, techniques) for implementing gravel road maintenance in the target provinces (Morobe, Western Highlands, East Sepik and West New Britain Province).

The ceremony was held at Bukawa road in Lae, Morobe province and a number of dignitaries were in attendance including Hon. Charles Able Minister for National Planning & Monitoring, Hon. Gisuwat Siniwin Naweab MP and Vice Minister for Education, Mr. John Ame Deputy Secretaray for DoW, Mr. Andrew Buna First Assistant Secretary - Plant and Transport Division of DoW, Mr. Kingsford Kassen, Provincial Works Manager - Morobe, Mr. Hiroshi Ueda and Mr. Yasuo Nakada JICA Expert Team and other representatives from organisations concerned.

In his speech, Mr. Yoshikazu Taniguchi – Representative of JICA PNG Office said, "I commend the government of PNG, most particularly the Department of Works for their initiative in revitalizing the Plant and Transport Divisionof DoW in re-fleeting their own construction equipment. The Grant Aid Project was designed and implemented in line with this policy re-engineering." He added that the ultimate goal in these projects is to maintain the road properly, but more importantly, focusing on developing DoW staff capacity to realize it. Even though capacity development is crucially vital in any area, it has been ignored for long time in PNG, unfortunately."

In this Technical Cooperation Project, JICA will be working closely with a number of partners, some of whom are based in Japan and others based here in PNG to successfully implement this project. By putting our collective efforts into this project, DoW will be better placed to attract and use resources that are available to support road maintenance work in PNG.

Minister for Planning Hon. Charles Able cuts the ribbon as others look on to mark the beginning of the Pilot Project in Bukawa road, Morobe Province

JICA representative Mr. Yoshikazu Taniguchi giving his inspiring speech to the Bukawa community

Bukawa dancers put up a stunning entertaining performance at the project site. Behind the dancers is JICA donated heavy equipment.