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Global Campaign on Urban Governance Activities in 2005


Papua New Guinea

Urban Governance Support Programme
This Programme was developed through a number of project development missions in support of the Government’s Department of Community Development to provide direct support to the emerging National Urbanisation Policy and broader national development goals, by responding to the pressing needs of PNG’s cities and towns. The Programme focuses assistance to Urban Local Level Governments (ULLG) in the day-to-day business of governing and managing cities and towns, and in particular to improve the capacity of local government to work with civic society and the private sector, to support the urban poor through the provision of basic urban services. As such the Programme will make a direct contribution to MDG Goal 7 targets 10 (water and sanitation) and 11 (“cities without slums”). Based on the needs of ULLGs and the varying speed of decentralisation within PNG, and through the introduction, adaptation and application of new methods and processes in urban governance and management spearheaded by UN-Habitat, the Programme will demonstrate how urban issues and challenges can be effectively tackled.

The ‘home-grown’, learning-by-doing, approach proposed by the Programme will be supplemented and supported by structured international exchange and exposure activities designed to provide learning from application elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, and provide an additional catalyst to innovation within a Melanesian context. The Programme specifically seeks to further enhance the capacity of the Office of Urbanisation to deliver the National Urbanisation Policy, monitor its progress and feed lessons learned back to the policy dialogue; and to further strengthen the PNG Urban Local Level Government Association as a key actor in the local level government institutional support infrastructure. Implementation is expected to commence in the second quarter of 2006.

The project supports the cities in three core areas:

* Participatory Urban Governance: by creating capabilities to promote, coordinate and manage participatory governance in cities; develop the capacities of training institutions and partner agencies to support local authorities in participatory urban governance; and build the capacities of national associations such as the Mayors Forum and Municipal Commissioners Association to advocate for policy change.

* Urban Poverty: by preparing poverty profiles that identify critical economic/social disadvantages, define inequitable access to services by the poor, along with gender disparities.

* Sustainable Urban Development: by compiling environmental profiles; formulate City Development Strategies and action plans; develop capacities in improving environmental governance.

Successfully promoting a development paradigm based upon participatory urban governance that has improved decision-making through a greater access to information, stakeholder involvement, and a better understanding of the issues identified in most of the partner cities. A customized toolkit in three languages and 24 training modules now form the basis of training programs mainstreamed through two national Training Institutions. The project has also influenced national and municipal level policies through: participation in the National Urban Sector Policy Framework Task Force; development of a National Capacity Building agenda; implementation of the National Solid Waste Management Strategy in the city strategies on solid waste; support to Ministry of Provincial Councils & Local Government in implementing recommendations of the Local Government Reform Commission Report. The Project was instrumental in coordinating an immediate response to the Tsunami affected partner cities of Batticaloa, Kattankudi, Jaffna and Galle, giving UN-HABITAT the field presence and capacity to develop follow-up reconstruction projects.