Activities in Papua New Guinea

1. Introduction & Background

PNG has 8,700km of National Road and 21,000km of Provincial and District Road. For National Road, around 44% (2023) is paved and the other 60% is unsealed gravel road as at 2017. For Provincial and District Road, almost all of them are gravel roads. Hence the majority of road specification in PNG is gravel. Department of Works and Highways (DOWH) is in charge of maintenance of National Road, however, maintenance work by DOWH is not properly done as routine basis due to limitation of resources such as heavy machinery and decent engineers and mechanics.

CDRM2 is the successor of CDRM1 which was implemented from November 2013 to October 2017, and CDRM2 is designed to inherit and beef up technical and administrative outputs from CDRM1, considering evaluation results and lesson learned of CDRM1 such as securing of financing by PNG Government, personnel relocation and full advantage of heavy machineries.

2. Basic Information

• JICA Cooperation Scheme: Technical Cooperation
• Target Development Sector: Transport
• Target SDGs: Goal 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Counterpart Organization: Department of Works and Highways (DOWH)
  Department of Works & Implementation (external link)
• Duration: 2021.3 - 2025.2
• Amount: PGK7.0Million
• Target Provinces, Location: Port Moresby, West Sepik, Madang, Western and East New Britain
• DOWH put importance on Gender Mainstreaming. In this project, gender balance among trainees is considered.

3. Outline of Project

• Project purpose: The DOWH's capacity (institution, management, techniques) for implementing gravel road maintenance by its in-house workforce and equipment is strengthened in the target provinces.
• Overall goal: Directly operated maintenance of gravel road in the target provinces are implemented in a proper manner by the DOWH's in-house workforce and equipment
• Outputs:
  1. PTSs of target province are set up to be capable of planning and implementing maintenance works of gravel roads under linkage with ‘Day Labour' concept.
  2. Operators, mechanics and civil engineers of the target PTS obtain sufficient knowledge, understanding, field experiences and practical skills necessary for gravel road maintenance works from identified trainers from CDRM 1.
  3. Management method in CDRM 1 is to be improved for further efficient use for Heavy equipment
  4. Function of PTS of DOWH HDQ is strengthened to support target provinces for gravel road maintenance.

4. Environmental and Social Considerations (including Gender perspectives)

No negative impact on people and environment

DOWH is considering gender equality and women's empowerment as normal practice.

Snap Photos

Maintenance work at Western Highland under Phase-1

Maintenance work at East Sepik, under Phase-1

Maintenance work at West New Britain, under Phase-1