Precisely quantifying the magnitude of the challenges facing Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been challenging given widespread data deprivation. We update estimates of welfare outcomes in the country by imputing monetary poverty outcomes using non-monetary indicators in the 2016-18 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and further estimating the World Bank’s Multidimensional Poverty Measure.

The estimates allow us to significantly expand the number of countries to which PNG can be compared in critical welfare outcomes relative to previous analyses using the 2016-18 DHS; better describe the nature of non-monetary deprivations in the country and the degree to which they overlap with monetary poverty; and illustrate that the poor welfare outcomes in PNG are significantly worse than would be expected by the level of economic activity in the country. The analysis better illustrates the urgent challenges facing the country and further decouples the link between economic activity and household well-being.

Speaker:
Dr Darian Naidoo, Economist, Poverty and Equity Global Practice, World Bank

The ANU-UPNG seminar series is part of the partnership between the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy and the UPNG School of Business and Public Policy, supported by the PNG-Aus Partnership.

This seminar is free and open to the public. Registration is required to attend the seminar. You can attend at Seminar 7 (Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU), at the MBA Suite (SBPP building, UPNG), or online via Zoom.