Dept’s 4-yr plan hinges on help from partners

By SONIA KENU
THE Community Development department has launched a four-year plan to source financial and technical assistance from its development partners and donor agencies.
The department presented its revised corporate plan for 2013-16 and an annual operation plan to development partners AusAID, United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), UN Women and the European Union.
Acting secretary Anna Solomon said under the government’s laws and policies, three government directives were captured in the corporate plan which was released in the Alotau Accord.
She said the three directives included establishing an office of religion, formulation of social protection policy for elderly and persons living with disability and unique national identity card to come before the civil registry.
“This year, the government has allocated K1 million which initially caters for the formulation of the social protection policy for the elderly and persons living with disability,” she said.
“That is why we are having this workshop so that managers of each program under community development will present their year plans and challenges before our partners to see how they can assist us.”
Solomon said from the workshop, AusAID has committed to assist with establishing an office of religion, World Bank to assist with social protection policy and Unicef to assist in setting up the unique national identity card system (biometric).
The department said the office of religion was expected to be established by the end of 2014, the national social policy should be launched by the end of 2014 and unique national identity card should be produced by 2015.