The Country Opinion Survey in Papua New Guinea assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in better understanding how stakeholders in Papua New Guinea perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the...

An IMF team conducted a Climate Public Investment Management Assessment in Papua New Guinea. This analysis identified some emerging areas of effectiveness related to management of public investment from a climate perspective, but also identified many key weaknesses throughout the public...

On March 22, 2023, the IMF Executive Board approved 38-month Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangements with Papua New Guinea to help address a protracted balance of payments need, manifested in foreign exchange shortages, and to support the authorities' reforms...

The main objective of the FSSR diagnostic mission was to help the PNG authorities build a roadmap of technical assistance (TA) to address identified financial sector needs and gaps, with a view to strengthen resilience of financial institutions and to enhance the policy framework. The PNG FSSR...

Papua New Guinea has abundant resources in the form of oil and mineral wealth. But a complex set of factors, including systemic gender inequality, underinvestment in non-extractive sectors, and fragility compounded by vulnerability to disasters caused by natural hazards act as barriers to...

The economy has recovered to pre-COVID level but remains below its pre-COVID trajectory. The COVID-19 crisis led to an economic contraction in 2020-21 before recovering by 5.2 percent in 2022. The recovery in the extractive sector was driven by significant improvement in international prices of...

The Integrated Government Information System (IGIS) is a private government network comprising several components such as records and data management services, government email, civil registration, the IGIS portal, IGIS data center & disaster recovery center, IGIS network, and a project...

Over the past decade, digital connectivity has emerged as a critical new form of infrastructure, akin to roads, energy or ports-underpinning economic growth and social development. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the advent of digital connectivity has opened up new avenues for communication,...

Background. On March 22, 2023, the IMF Executive Board approved 38-month Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangements with Papua New Guinea to help address a protracted balance of payments need manifested in foreign exchange shortages and to support the...

The International Monetary Fund's mission to Papua New Guinea sought to revitalize the development of fiscal and debt statistics following a period of disruption caused by a ransomware attack, Covid-19, and high staff turnover. To that end, the mission provided a combination of formal training...

A technical assistance mission from the IMF's Statistics Department visited Papua New Guinea (PNG) during August 2-15, 2023, to support the authorities in improving compilation and dissemination of government finance statistics (GFS) and public sector debt statistics (PSDS). The mission assisted...

About 72 percent of Papua New Guinea's (PNG's) 10-year-olds cannot read well enough to understand an age-appropriate text. These students are at risk of dropping out of school and not being able to continue onto secondary education. PNG's future development hinges on ensuring that a larger...

The objective of the Pacific Observatory is to improve welfare for the poor and vulnerable in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Island Countries through expanding socio-economic information for better data-driven policymaking

This paper examines how an earthquake in Papua New Guinea changed people's attitudes about and the prevalence of intimate partner violence. Although there are several reasons why disasters can aggravate intimate partner violence, among men in disaster-affected regions, the acceptability of...

With the collaboration of the National Energy Authority of Papua New Guinea, the World Bank team launched the first Global Energy Access Households Surveys in Papua New Guinea in 2021 to establish a baseline for tracking progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal 7 target 7.1: ensure...

There was substantial growth in the resource sector in Papua New Guinea during the last resource boom, increased revenue collection by the government associated with that growth, and significant increases in international assistance, all which might have translated into improved well-being...

According to World Bank estimates, Papua New Guinea (PNG) achieved an annual per capita Gross National Income (GNI) of US$2,470 in 2022 (Trading Economics, 2022). This is considerably lower than neighboring countries such as Indonesia with a per capita GNI of US$4,580 (Jiao & Sihombing, 2023) or...

High commodity prices and the removal of COVID-19 restrictions spurred economic recovery in 2022. The government continued with fiscal consolidation to safeguard macroeconomic stability. Higher commodity prices contributed to higher inflation and stronger external balances. Economic growth is...

The Country Economic Memorandum (CEM) focuses on long-term growth, outlining the challenges Papua New Guinea (PNG) faces to achieve sufficient economic growth to expand the incomes of its rapidly growing population as well as what is required for PNG to make the transition to a higher, more...

Capabilities to track fast-moving economic developments re-main limited in many regions of the developing world. This complicates prioritizing policies aimed at supporting vulnerable populations. To gain insight into the evolution of fluid events in a data scarce context, this paper explores the...

The role of the exchange rate as a ‘shock absorber’ is often undermined in resource-dependent developing countries when a negative commodity price shock hits the economy. Rather than pursuing greater flexibility, the policymakers rely more on intervention strategies which further aggravates...

This Technical Assistance report discusses Papua New Guinea's Financial Soundness Indicators (FSI) mission. The mission, in collaboration with the Bank of Papua New Guinea staff, updated the bridge tables from the source data for compiling FSIs for deposit takers (DT) and developed new ones to...

This paper focuses on Papua New Guinea's First Reviews under Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and an Arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), and Request for Modification of Quantitative Performance Criteria. Papua New Guinea's economic outlook remains...

This paper presents Papua New Guinea's Requests for an Arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) and an Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The 38-month arrangement will support Papua New Guinea's reform agenda, which seeks to help protect the vulnerable and...

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has faced a foreign exchange (forex) shortage since 2015. To protect reserves, the Bank of PNG has resorted to forex rationing that led to a large backlog of orders and import compression. This paper surveys the structure of PNG’s forex market and analyzes recent market...

Reflecting a strong global economic rebound, Papua New Guinea (PNG) reversed its downward economic growth trajectory in 2021. The World Bank estimates that the PNG economy contracted by 3.5 percent in 2020 before returning to positive economic growth of 1 percent in 2021. Domestic agricultural...

This Country Program Evaluation (CPE) will assess the World Bank Group's engagement in Papua New Guinea between FY08 and FY22. The Papua New Guinea has an abundant resource endowment of oil and mineral wealth, but this wealth has not translated into significant welfare gains for most citizens....

This report focuses on the socio-economic impacts of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Papua New Guinea. The report shows insights from the fourth round of high frequency phone surveys conducted as of December 2021. Economic recovery was weak with household incomes falling. Low vaccination rates may...

The Special Focus for this issue is on long-term growth, emphasizing the challenges PNG is facing. The chapter identifies the underlying challenges of low and volatile growth in the country and aims at starting a public discussion to better understand the problems and, thus, contribute to...

This discussion paper details three main ways children are impacted by sorcery accusation related violence (SARV) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) today. First, it explains that infant and childhood mortality and illness are a major trigger of accusations of sorcery. Second, it identifies a newish and...