Activities in Papua New Guinea

The second Joint Coordinating Committee of the Capacity Development Project for Operationalization of PNG Forest Resource Information Management System (PNG-FRIMS) for Addressing Climate Change was held on the 19th August, 2015 in the Boardroom of the headquarters of the PNG Forest Authority (PNGFA) in Port Moresby. The objective of the second JCC was to assess the progress of the Project and to consider making any amendment if necessary on Project Design Matrix (PDM) and Plan of Operations (P/O).

Participants in the JCC included officers from PNGFA, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) under UN-REDD Programme, JICA PNG Office, Embassy of Japan and Japanese experts of the Project.

At the beginning, Mr Goodwill Amos, the Chair of the JCC and Acting Managing Director of the National Forest Service of the PNGFA congratulated the project team for making progress in the Project and expressed his further expectation for the Project.

Mr Shigeru Sugiyama, the Co-Chair of the JCC and Chief Representative of JICA PNG Office emphasized the relevance of the Sustainable Forest Management to the 15th goal (Sustainably managed forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss) of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and suggested to have a meeting initiated by the Department of National Planning and Monitoring to discuss PNG's stance and action plan for achieving the SDGs.

Subsequently, Mr Constin Otto Bigol, the Project Manager and the Manager of Inventory and Mapping made a presentation on the progress of the Project. His presentation included briefings on not only deployment of JICA experts, procurement, trainings and duty trips but also the collaborations with other programmes. He also illustrated challenges and issues encountered during the course of the Project implementation. Mr. Sugiyama suggested PNGFA to make best use of its asset such as the GIS and map data, not only for logging project management and forest industry but also for the public awareness and sharing with other government agencies.

The Project Chief Advisor, Mr Tatsuya Watanabe, suggested to clarify the terms such as ‘two numbers' of ‘objectively verifiable indicators' for ‘Overall Goal' by including their specific examples in the PDM. The JCC agreed that the decision to define ‘two numbers' would be made at the next JCC. No objection was raised in regard to including specific examples in the PDM.

The Chair, Mr. Amos, expressed his expectation to see more results and outcomes of the Project in coming years, then thanked all the JCC members for their participation in the meeting, and formally closed the meeting.