This seminar highlights how enhancing agricultural productivity can significantly contribute to job creation and poverty reduction in Papua New Guinea
Utilizing agricultural information in the national statistical system (NSS), we illustrate how improvements in agricultural productivity can drive substantial poverty reduction in both the short and the long term. Achieving the government’s primary goals of creating jobs in commercial agriculture and in off-farm sectors will significantly improve livelihoods in the country.
However, this report illustrates that employment in these prioritized subsectors is low and there has been limited employment growth over much of the last decade, in part due to the same structural factors that prevent the population from taking advantage of the resource-led growth that is occurring. Thus, in order to ensure that there is not another decade of limited improvement in well-being for the majority of the population, it could be important to improve the productivity of subsistence agriculture in the short run.
Subsistence agriculture supports the consumption of nearly 90 percent of the population, evidence suggests that there are substantial productivity gains that can be made amongst the subsector, and a range of non-traditional data sources point to potential feasible policies to improve productivity. Small productivity gains amongst subsistence farmers can help improve well-being while commercial agriculture and off-farm sectors continue to develop.
The monthly ANU-UPNG seminar series is part of the partnership between the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and the UPNG, supported by the PNG-Aus Partnership.
This a hybrid seminar held at ANU, UPNG's School of Business and Public Policy MBA Suite and online via Zoom.
Seminar time: 12.30 - 1.30pm AEST and PGT.
Event Speakers
Sharad Tandon
Sharad Tandon is a Senior Economist in the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank, which he joined in 2017. He is an applied microeconomist working on understanding how and why well-being is changing in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. His research aims to alleviate food insecurity and poverty in fragile settings.