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Hi Japheth, thanks for your comments. I can't find time to respond in details like I did for Domyal. Download the report in the link below and more information about your concerns are in the report. Thankyou again for your comments. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/69818a68ee1c43266e17f151/t/6aa8927678399d296260511f/1789432438462/7.+Annex+G+-+Family+Planning%2C+Power%2C+Internet.pdf

Dear Domyal, Thank you for reading the blog and raising these points. Your observations are consistent with the full report, although the blog could only summarise its recommendations. Heres my five response. First, about the policy implementation and literacy, I agree that policy commitments alone cannot deliver results. Pages (pp.) 10–11 of the report discuss earlier implementation failures.” And page (p.) 19 proposes an operational reform with clear responsibilities, protected financing, trained providers and reliable supplies. The literacy concern is captured in p.15 which identifies weak counselling, while p.20 recommends provider certification covering informed choice, confidentiality and follow-up. Second, about the rural disadvantage and the gap between knowledge and use, the report explicitly recognises these inequalities. P. 13 records contraceptive use of 50% in urban areas and 35% in rural areas. pp 20–22 propose transport funding, mobile clinics, district outreach and stronger supply arrangements. One small clarification is that 37% and 31% both refer to married women using any contraceptive method and a modern method, respectively. They are not separate female and male use rates. Knowing that a method exists also does not establish informed understanding or access. As such, the report examines unmet need and reproductive preferences alongside awareness. Third, about the one-size-fits-all delivery, the report total agrees. p. 24 states that “In PNG, unmet needs and modern contraception vary across wealth groups, regions and socio-economic demographic characteristics, meaning that a uniform delivery model will fail.” It then concludes that “The program should therefore be national in commitment, provincial in design and district-based in implementation.” Recommendation 10 on p. 27 specifies different approaches for low-access provinces, growing urban settlements and remote communities. Similarly, p.23 address adolescents’ privacy, stigma and confidentiality concerns. In short, different circumstances require different services. Its captured in the report. Fourth, about the broader social and economic conditions, I agree that education, literacy, income opportunities and early marriage deserve attention. p. 23 recognise these connections. Recommendation 8 on p. 27 proposes population and family life education through collaboration with the Department of Education. However, this chapter does not provide a comprehensive literacy, employment or early-marriage prevention strategy. Those wider reforms should accompany improvements in voluntary reproductive health services. Fifth and finally, about the existing resources, NGOs and whether the problem is conversion or uniform delivery, these problems are closely connected. Poorly adapted services can prevent funding and knowledge from becoming effective access. pp 24–27 specify delivery responsibilities, predictable financing, partner agreements and public reporting on stock-outs, outreach, counselling quality and regional equity. These arrangements must be judged by results.

Great piece to read! I do not have a background in economics, but I am keen to understand how government policy affects people’s socioeconomic wellbeing. Drawing on my own experience and views, I would like to share my thoughts on the presentation, particularly the government’s tax exemption for 10 basic food items announced about 18 months ago. Please correct me if I have misunderstood any part of the presentation. First, the presentation would be clearer with a simple table showing baseline prices for the 10 basic food items at formal supermarkets and informal rural or settlement canteens and trade stores. Comparing prices before, during, and after the 18-month period would clearly show the policy’s effect on these items. The presentation should next identify who benefited from the government’s tax exemption on 10 basic food items: low-income consumers, or major supermarket owners and importers. It should also explain how the policy affected rural producers who supply comparable local foods—for example, kaukau or bananas instead of rice, and live chickens instead of tinned meat. Including data on the benefits received by these producers and suppliers would strengthen the presentation. Although the analysis mentions informal-sector participants, it does not quantify how much they benefited from the policy, leaving an important gap. As a Port Moresby resident who shops fortnightly for these 10 basic food items, I have felt little benefit from the government’s policy over the past 18 months. For example, the price of a 20 kg bag of Trukai rice rose from K68.00 to K96.00 and now stands at K112.00. This increase makes the tax exemption difficult to see in my grocery costs. The situation in provincial centres and rural areas is likely even more severe. The government's tax exemption policy on basic food items has had little to no impact on ordinary urban residents like me, as well as those in rural areas and the informal sector. Prices of the 10 basic food items remain high, and consumers have not experienced any noticeable benefits, not even an 8-toea reduction in the rural areas since I have not seriously experienced any in the urban center like Port Moresby.

T/his is a great piece to read. There are few points that, I consider worth discussing. The first is family planning data/evidence verses policy development and execution. The way PNG public policy is design, resourced and implemented, one can confidently conclude that a PNG family planning policy will not achieve any constructive outcome - many reasons, low literacy is one obvious reason, for example. The next reason why any opportunity for family planning will not work well in PNG is the large rural population based than urban nuclear family style. In your data analysis, you mentioned areas like percentage of married women -88% and married men 92% with knowledge of a birth control method. While the rate of women and men using a birth control method was 37% and 31% respectively. Then you have data on the use of birth control method -rural 35% and urban 50% women and the availability of accessible services in the two places is unequal. With what you mentioned and other compounding reasons between rural and urban setting, the level of accessibility by beneficiaries and the level of availability by the providers is seriously unequal, therefore the issue remains. The PNG government system and the NGOs and development partners approach of one size fits all policy and program development and implementation will not make a huge impact. Example, married couples having more children has a different reason than young sexually active adolescences having unplanned pregnancies or rural family planning is different to urban family planning. However, the partners taking the same approach thinking it will work for everyone, or circumstance is an unrealistic dream. Definitely successful development policies and strategies in other places did not work that way. In order to see tangible impact in family planning and greater improvement in the demographic data of a family, society and a nation is not to focus on family planning but address the factors that contribute to low birth control, unplanned pregnancy, early marriage, low literacy level, greater income opportunity, further education opportunity, the list goes on. In PNG, we have family planning policies, government allocated resources, donors and NGOs running errands to support the agendas, yet you have the data and evidence that speaks otherwise. Family planning in PNG is a (resources) conversion problem, or one size fits all approach problem.

The focus of PNG should be to having healthy children and not just on having less children. I dislike the narrative that PNG women should have less children just for the sake of meeting modern norms because PNG will go down the road of the Western nations which are now an aging society. Europe cannot function without its migrants. This did not work for them .Once the fertility rate drops below the replacement level of 2.1, it will be dangerous because there is no modern OECD nation today with a low birthrate that has been able to recover; except to bring in migrants to prop up their countries. For example, Europe as we know it may not exist in 50 years time because it is an aging continent. Look at modern Italy, failing because they do not have babies. Look at Japan.They need migration to prop up their economies. And with the influx of African and Asian migrants (who have higher fertility), this will change Europe.

Acutely observed, Bernard: I have long held reservations about Fraser’s denial of impropriety at Care . I worked in the international Aid world for two decades, and now writing my book on APS Corruption

Very interesting blog, including the discussion about factors that might explain the increases — or decreases — in life expectancy. Readers of this blog might also be interested to know that the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) posted a blog this month on differences in life expectancy, and differences in causes of death, among the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The IHME blog notes, for example, that in 2023 regional life expectancy was 70.1 years for males and 76.2 years for females, ranging from 87.5 years for females in Singapore to 62.1 years for males in Myanmar (95% uncertainty intervals are recorded for all statistics cited in the IHME blog). The IHME blog also identifies some noteworthy trends in causes of deaths. As just one example, the IHME blog explains that "road injuries were the primary driver of mortality among males from adolescence through to early adulthood, accounting for 25.0% of total mortality in males aged 15–19 years, with mortality rates varying from 3.0 per 100,000 population to 49.0 per 100,000 population." The IHME blog is available <a href="https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/library/causes-death-across-life-course-association-southeast-asian-nations-asean?utm_source=IHME+Updates&utm_campaign=88f8837bda-IHME+Updates+9-24-26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1790fa6746-88f8837bda-422174417" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>.

Great to read this piece It is interesting to read the relationship between natural phenomenon -El Nino and man-made SARV cases. I would like to raise some concerns around the particular EL Nino related SARV case reported in Simbu. The reported case would have been taken out of context and narrated it as alleged El Nino related SARV case on that particular old woman and society, more information needs to be collected from not only the alleged victim but the accusers/perpetrators before developing the case into an El Nino related SARV case. SARV cases has been a lived experiences in many parts of the PNG societies, however given the El Nino experiences currently affecting daily lives, one cannot contextualise an alleged SARV case into El Nino related, next time when another natural disaster strikes, doing the same and relating it to something that has been practiced since time memorial, is not a healthy academic discourse. It also means doing a deep dive into documenting and understanding how sorcery related accusation is determined in a family setting, that evolves into a community setting before one or two innocent victims faced the ordeal. Understanding sorcery related accusation that falls into the context and definition of SARV is important. That particular case reported in Simbu, I still have doubts how it is reported that way, the health worker on the ground who collected the story may be misinformed or mis reported the accounts of events, SARV case, less El Nino related. This report may mis represent real cause of the SARV case, and portray a bad character of the persons involved, the local families and community and the Simbu Province, as a local from the Province where the story originate, I stand to protect and correct accuracy of events. Thanks

Well said Stephen. Like you, I am puzzled (or dumbfounded) that the government has gone down the cumbersome route of caps and ballots instead of simply removing the offer of a third WHM visa. The number of non-UK WHMs (subclasses 417 and 462) present in Australia was 56% higher at June 2026 than it was in June 2019 (which I see as the best pre-Covid comparison point). This suggests the third visa, introduced in 2019, has been a huge draw card. For a government keen to rein in Net Overseas Migration, it makes sense to remove it. I doubt the impact on regional labour markets would have been that huge. The demand for seasonal labour is surely not greatly different in 2026 to what it was in 2019 and employers now also have access to a much larger number of PALM workers than they did in 2019 (even though the two groups don't always meet identical needs). Scrapping (or suspending) the third WHM visas would have been a clean and simple move and relatively easy to defend against the complaints of farmers and tourism operators. The ballot system is hard to justify and explain by comparison, and as you write, its impact is impossible to predict.

It will hurt PNGians coming to Australia on the Work and Holiday Maker visa - this is the only real self-application option for PNG youth as it is a lottery to get into the PEV and it is just as much a lottery (and one with a lot of hurdles, corruption and scams) to get into PALM. It seems a shame to take this opportunity away when only 100 PNG youth a year participate in the visa. It would be better to extend the opportunity to other Pacific island countries, increase the caps to a sensible level, and allow PNG and Pacific participants the same exemption as UK residents.

Thank you Mr Moses Sakai for the valid information about death penalty. I'm doing a major report writing about this topic and it really helped me alot.🙏

The answer is an absolutely YES, however been involved in a customer survey on market pricing there were some practical responses provided which would have enriched the article.