PNG is experiencing a minerals boom and confronts serious challenges in translating increased resource revenues into effective development outcomes. Together with the National Research Institute of Papua New Guinea the Development Policy Centre undertook the “Promoting Effective Public Expenditure Project” over a three year period (2012-2014).

The PEPE project aimed to better understand how PNG allocates its public funds and then how their funds are provided to and used by those responsible for delivering basic services.

The project consisted of two inter-related components. The first focused on analysing the allocation of PNG’s public resources through the budget process. The findings of this analysis, as well as the surveys discussed below, were then presented at twice yearly budget fora to provide a more systematic understanding of how PNG allocates its public resources, which helps reveal the government’s policy priorities.

The second component focused on understanding local expenditure dynamics and reforms. Through an expenditure tracking survey focused on local schools and health facilities, we were able to better understand whether funds were been effectively managed to deliver services. In particular, we focused on recent reforms to see whether they were yielding improvements in service delivery.

If you are interested in receiving further information about this project, please contact, Colin Wiltshire.

PEPE final report: A lost decade? Service delivery and reforms in Papua New Guinea 2002-2012
Stephen Howes, Andrew Anton Mako, Anthony Swan, Grant Walton, Thomas Webster and Colin Wiltshire
October 2014
This report presents the results of a 2012 survey of 360 primary schools and health clinics across eight provinces in PNG, from the nation’s capital to its most far-flung and inaccessible regions. Many of the same facilities were visited at the start of the decade in a similar study. By combining the two surveys, we can assess progress on education and health service delivery over time, and analyse the impact of important policy reforms.

» Full report PDF [PDF 5.8 MB]
» NRI Spotlight summary [PDF 1.3 MB]
» A3 flyer summary [PDF 4.1 MB]
» Individual chapters from the report are available on the PEPE publications page.

Read a short analysis piece completed under the PEPE project.