District sees positive impact in development, good governance

THE Australian government’s aid to Nawaeb district, Morobe, is having positive impact on the lives of people through community development and good governance projects.
Some of those projects include a cocoa and coffee rehabilitation programme and the construction of a girls’ dormitory and shower blocks at Nawaeb High School.
The latest activity involved training of more than 100 villagers in 19 communities in good governance training and creation of ward governance systems.
The training was tied in with the healthy island concept (HIC) to ensure people took ownership in ward areas to address health and governance issues.
Nawaeb district health manager and HIC advocator Justin Ruaming said AusAid had invested K104,000 for training, logistics, allowances and tools to maintain clean villages.
Tools included brush cutters, knives and grass knives, loud hailers, spades and forks to 16 villages in Wain.
The provincial health and the integrated village development programme under the community development co-funded the training.
Ruaming said 16 villages were given K10,000 each as seed capital to support their projects while an additional K100,000 was secured for future training.
Lae-based Australian Consulate General research officer Ruby Yamuna said the five-month training was to empower people in the wards to be self-reliant instead of waiting on the government to do things. She said the training was in line with Kundu Vision to empower wards (bottom-up approach) to link local level governments (LLGs) with their district.
Morobe Governor Ginson Saonu and administrator Bart Ipambonj were impressed with the HIC.

in the nine districts.