PAPUA NEW GUINEACOUNTRY PAPERPREPARED BY MR LUDWICK KEMBU QPMCONTENTS
1. PAPUA NEW GUINEA - A COUNTRY *2. DISASTER IN THE COUNTRY *3. NATIONAL DISASTER AND EMERGENCY SERVICES *4. PAPUA NEW GUINEA DISASTER MANAGEMENT PROJECT *5. ATTACHMENTS *1. PAPUA NEW GUINEA - A COUNTRYPapua New Guinea (PNG) is a country with over 4.5 million people. The country lies north of Australia
and share common International Borders with Australia, Indonesia and Solomon Islands.

The country has diverse cultures and over 700 languages and dialects.

The country gained its independence from Australian in 1975.

2. DISASTER IN THE COUNTRY
Papua New Guinea is one of the countries in the world that was seriously struck by Natural Disasters
in the most recent pasts.

In 1995, the volcano totally destroyed the beautiful town of Rabaul in East New Britain Province.
Thousands of people were relocated and a new town is now being built in Kokopo. International donors
such as Japan and Australia assisted in the rebuilding of essential infrastructures such as airport,roads etc.

In 1999/98, Papua New Guinea was seriously affected by the Drought and Frost brought about by theglobal El-Nino Phenomenon. Again international donors came to assist the country with Japan
donating 8,000 tonnes of rice, plus monetary donations.

In 1998, a Tsunami (Tidal Wave) struck the west coast in Sandaun Province causing the death of 2,022
people and destroying entire villages and leaving thousands homeless.

Apart from these major disasters, there were other minor disasters, such as the Manam Volcano in
Madang Province, earthquakes, floods, landslides and sea mishaps.

3. NATIONAL DISASTER AND EMERGENCY SERVICES
The National Disaster and Emergency Services (ND ES) is an organisation established by an Act ofParliament ? The Disaster Management Act.

Its main function is to ensure that the National Disaster Procedures are adopted throughout Papua
New Guinea.

The functions and activities of the National Disaster and Emergency Services are clearly outlined in
the National Disaster Management Plan Handbook which formed the basic blue prints for managing
disasters in Papua New Guinea.

Owing to the fact that the plan was drawn up some years back, it needs to be reviewed and updated toconform with the current situations in the country.

It is therefore pleasing to note that the review programme is scheduled to commence in March this year
\along with other Disaster Management Programmes which I will outline later in this paper.

4. PAPUA NEW GUINEA DISASTER MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Following the experiences of Rabaul Volcano Disaster in 1995, the National Disaster and Emergency
Services had embarked on a project sponsored by AusAid to put together the Management Programmeto improve the National Disaster Management capabilities.

The Project Documents was finalised in 1995 and presented to AusAid. In the same year the document
was passed to the Secretary for Provincial and Local Level Government, which is the motherdepartment of the National Disaster & Emergency Office to comment on the document before further
action can be taken in so far as the implementation was concern.

Since then nothing much eventuated, thus delaying the implementation of the proposed project.

In 1998, in the midst of the drought and tsunami disasters, the Government directed that the project
document be reviewed and implemented as it was seen as a priority tasks to improve the Government’sabilities to manage disasters more effectively in the country.

Once again, thanks to AusAid which agreed to fund the review of the project documents and later theactual implementation of the project.

It is pleasing now to note that the review had been completed and the review project document is now
in Canberra, Australia to assess and administer the Tender Procedure of the Project.

The main purposes of the Review, if I may outline was to bring the components of the Project into linewith the current Government Reform System and also to include experiences learnt from the Drought
and Tsunami Disasters in the project components.

At the time of the Review, it was agreed that some preproject activities be implemented in 1999 whilst
the actual project will come into implementation in 2000.

The components of the pre-project activities which formed the main disaster activities in 1999 includesthe:- Review of the NDES Structures;- IDM and TFI Training Courses;- Review of the national Disaster Management Plans referred to earlier;- Disaster Awareness and Preparedness Activities; and- Review of the Disaster Management Act.

The review of the NDES structure had been completed and the new structure is now the Department ofPersonnel Management (DPM) for approval. The NDES structure is amongst all other Government
Departments Structures that were reviewed for the purposes of cost reduction and 1999 Budget
Implementations.

The review of the NDES structure came up with the identification of core business of the Disaster
Institutions in the country which needs to be strengthened when implementing the Papua New Guinea
Disaster Management Project in Year 2000. The Project is a 5 year Project Term.

Main components of the project are the:Institutional Strengthening
Disaster Education and Community Awareness
Disaster Preparedness andDisaster Training

With the institutional training, the project intends to improve and strengthen Disaster Institutions atthe National, Provincial and District Levels. This basically what the Government Reform System is allabout, getting the District and Provincial Governments to be responsible for the affairs of the district orgrass root levels. The intention here is to strengthen the Provincial and District Authorities to respondinitially to disasters and only call on the National Government when all its coping capacities are fully
exhausted.

With Disaster Awareness and Preparedness, the Project intend to provide wide range of education andawareness in the Government, NGOs and community organisation. By doing this, wider co-ordination

is needed and this is why the function of Government and donor co-ordination is emphasis in thereviewed structure. The project also intends to achieve these objectives through a wide range ofworkshops and training courses to cover all stakeholders in Disaster Management.

5. ATTACHMENTS
Reviewed NDES Organisational Structure
Copy of the Pre-Project Activities

LUDWICK KEMBU QPM
Director General
NATIONAL DISASTER MONITORING OFFICE DIVISION CORE AND SUPPORTACTIVITIES 1999

CORE
ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY BREAKDOWN RELEVANTASSISTINGDEADLINE（Core in＆bold, SUPPORT
support in italics)
ACTANDDIVISIONS（APPLIC．）IFSECTION(IFAPPLICABLE)
NATIONALDISASTERMANAGEMENTa) Review and update nationalLP（PrePLAN
disaster planproject）
DISASTER MANAGEMENT ACTa) Review and update disaster
LP（Premanagement actproject）
DISASTER
Praducedisaster（PreINFORMATION PUBLICATIONS ＆ a)awarenessmaterialproject）
b) Distribute throughout ＰＮＧ
ａｓ requiredc) Conduct awareness campaign in urban andrural areasa) Continue current efforts
ADDC

AITAPEREHABILITATION/RECONSTRUCTION
MANAM RESETTLEMENTa)
Resettle
vulnerable
community to Bogia district.
b)
Createemergency
contingency plan for Manam
volcano eruptionsa) Co-ordinate & conduct
training courses (TFI，IDM)

DISASTERMANAGEMENTFOR
GOVERNMENTANDTRAININGNONGOVERNMENTAGENCIES (NATIONAL
AND PROVINCIAL LEVEL）
ESTABLISH
DISASTERDATA a)requirements
Specify
MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

systemb)
Develop
DisasterManagement Systemc) Train users and maintain

NDMO STAFF ESTABLISHMENTa) Review Ｎ Ｄ Ｍ Ｏ
establishment

staff（Preproject）（Preproject）
Rehab
complete

Madang PA

19/2/99

Madang PA

19/3/99

HRD,Prov
Adms,
AUSAID（Preproject）

LGAS （ Ｄ ａ ｔ （Preａ）
project）（Preproject）（Preproject）
HRD（Preproject）