EnglishA three-day conference on human development indicators and extractive industries in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has attracted more than 100 participants. The conference was organised by IM4DC and ANUedge in association with the PNG Institute of National Affairs (INA) and held 17 to 19 March in Port Moresby.
The conference examined what is already known about the social impacts of major resource projects in PNG and the problems encountered with the measurement and reporting of social development indicators by both private and public sector agencies.
It was attended by representatives of mining and petroleum companies operating in PNG, relevant government agencies, civil society organisations and tertiary education institutions.
The recent publication of PNG’s second National Human Development Report: From Wealth to Wellbeing: Translating Resource Revenue into Sustainable Human Development poses two problems of measurement:
- The first has to do with the national government’s measurement of progress made in the achievement of ‘sustainable human development’, especially the collection and interpretation of national data for the numerous indicators currently associated with the Millennium Goals
- The second problem involves the ways that companies operating major resource projects measure their own contribution to ‘sustainable human development’ in the areas directly affected by their operations.
These two problems have often been considered in isolation from each other. This conference investigated the relationship between them two problems. It considered the practical problems of data collection and interpretation in order to inform of the development of better policies and guidelines for the measurement of human well-being or sustainable human development, at different geographical scales or different levels of political organisation, by all interested parties.
The conference sought to address three questions:
- How to improve the quality and relevance of the data that is collected to assess the social impact of major resource projects in PNG without simply adding to the cost of collection?
- How to reconcile the indicators and reporting systems used by private and public sector agencies in order to avoid duplication and inconsistency?
- How to make optimal use of the data collected in this process of assessment for the design and delivery of more effective development interventions?
Answers to these questions may help some of the relevant stakeholders to improve the guidelines that apply to the process of data collection and analysis, but the main aim of the exercise was to improve the quality of the resource materials available for relevant teaching in PNG’s tertiary institutions.