Papua New Guinea

Chris Lunnay has been involved in supporting the Government of Papua New Guinea with the development of a Concept Design Document for their National Land Development Program (NLDP). Chris undertook an initial visit to Port Moresby in early July to assess the GoPNG requirements. There was a need to link the outputs from the concept design activities into the PNG annual budget cycle, which meant that all design activities needed to be completed by early September. A concept design team was put together at very short notice and mobilisation of the team commenced on 5 August. The international team consisted of Chris Lunnay (Team Leader/Land Administration), Kevin Rainsford (IT Policy/Valuation), Norena Kavanagh (Institutional and HRD), Pamela Harris (Community Education and Customer Service) and the nationals were Oswald Tolopa (Legislation and Disputes) and Dr Lawrence Kalinoe (Customary Land).

A number of readers of this newsletter may be aware of the chequered history of land reform initiatives in PNG and may well think that this is just another futile attempt at addressing land issues. It certainly is another attempt, but this time there is significant momentum to implement land reform initiatives. A National Land Summit was held in Lae in August 2005 with the theme, Land, Economic Growth and Development with the main objective being to generate strategic options to access land for development. Following the Land Summit a National Land Development Taskforce (NLDT) was established to identify problems and issues relating to land administration, land dispute resolution procedures and how best to access land under customary ownership to enable development.

The NLDT and its three committees – Committee on Land Administration, Committee on Land Dispute Settlement and Committee on Customary Land Development commenced activities in January 2006. In July 2006 the findings and recommendations from the three committees were considered and endorsed by the NLDT. A series of consultations were then convened including to government Ministers, state institutions and donor agencies through to groups with common interests such as provincial governments and the general public. In November 2006 the taskforce presented its report, “National Land Development Taskforce Report” to the Government.

The NLDT Report made 54 recommendations on agreed actions that are required to address deficiencies in the management of land administration activities, develop customary land initiatives and improve the land dispute settlement procedures. These recommendations provide a clear direction for the progression of land administration initiatives in Papua New Guinea.
This Concept Design Document is the next step in the process towards a comprehensive reform of land administration activities in Papua New Guinea. It builds on the outcomes from the NLDT Report, ensures that the momentum that has been developed in moving toward a reform agenda is maintained and also provides a framework around which the reform processes can be developed.

Provided by Chris Lunnay