Papua New Guinea Research Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring and Evaluation Challenges for Public Institutions in Papua New Guinea

There is a very low program management capacity including M&E within public institutions at both the national and sub-national levels. The National Statistics Office which would normally play the coordination and data management oversight role has had limited capacity for a long time. Furthermore, the country has limited experience in rigorous and systematic data collection and analysis. Most data collection and analysis exercises are projectised, one-off efforts, which make objective trend analysis and measuring progress very difficult if not impossible. As a result of the low capacity in M&E and the low priority and support given to the collection and management of information, data have tended to be of low and inconsistent quality and consequently of limited use. There have been minimal incentives to systematically generate evidence useful for decision making and improve accountability. Additionally, it must be acknowledged here that in some cases, there are strong disincentives to collect basic information, especially on expenditure and program implementation. Without strong political support, the likelihood of changing the culture towards better monitoring and accounting for investments and results will be minimal. In the complex PNG context, limited information means that in the majority of cases, high level policy decisions for instance in the allocation of resources, is based on the decision makers’ partial knowledge and past experiences rather than on hard evidence. This decision making process is prone to personal and group interests and has over time become a norm. To change this culture, especially at high levels of government and political hierarchy requires strong political will, a strong supply of good evidence able to influence decision making; but also a demand from beneficiaries for demonstration of results.