Make policies effective at community level, Eoe says

National

By PETER ESILA
MINISTER for Youth, Religion and Community Development, Soroi Eoe, has urged his department to make its policies more effective at the community level.
Eoe, speaking at a consultation workshop in Port Moresby on Monday, said that there must be an improvement to the department’s overarching Integrated Community Development Policy (ICDP).
The workshop was conducted to review the ICDP 2018-2022.
“Papua New Guinea is not Port Moresby or Lae or Mt Hagan or Kokopo, so we must be seen to impact each community that really matters,” Eoe said.
“The Integrated Community Development Policy calls for inter-sector and multi-sector approach to service delivery and community capacity enhancement.”
Eoe said the main objective of the consultation was to bring together non-governmental organisations (NGOs), churches and the private sector to discuss issues of integration and create synergies to implement policies on the ground.
“This government is focused through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Medium Term Development Plan (MTDP) 3 to improve the service delivery framework, disband territorial challenges and ensure whole of government and an integrated community development approach.”
Eoe said fostering meaningful partnership was important in creating an enabling environment for the policy framework. Department Secretary Anna Solomon said implementation of the policy would have direct implications on the achievement of the National Planning Act, Service Delivery Framework and provisions of the Organic Law on Provincial and Local Level Government for service delivery.
Solomon added that the Government needed to focus on people issues.
“We cannot do big changes if we cannot address those soft issues,” she said.
“A lot of people refer to these issues as soft issues, if we do not handle that well, none of these big changes matter.
“And in the villages and communities people are now on social media. It is a culture shock to many but they’re already accessing a lot of materials that you thought they would never access.
“This is what’s happening at the communities so how can we go there and help them so that they are able to embrace a lot of these changes that are happening?”
ICDP is a rights-based approach through which people are empowered to develop their communities.