Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG) became a member of the ILO in 1976 a year after it gained independence and became the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.

It is the largest Pacific Island Country, both in terms of land mass and population, estimated at 6.2 million. About 40 per cent of the population is under the age of 18 with 87 per cent of the total population living in rural areas. Most of the country’s terrain is varied and rugged and made up of an extraordinary range of ecosystems, some of which are not accessible by road. PNG is rich and diverse in its cultures and ethnicities with some 800 languages spoken.

PNG’s economy is forecasted to grow by 8.5% in 2011 largely due to the recent rise in commodity prices and new project investments in the resource-rich Pacific nation. The growth is credited to the $15 billion Exxon Mobil-led Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Project which is largely responsible for boosting growth in PNG.

The Department of Labour and Industrial Relations in PNG, together with the PNG Employers Federation and the PNG Trade Union Congress signed their Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) on the 28th November 2008 for the years 2009-2012 and endorsed the following four priorities.

  • Priority 1. Capacity building of tripartite partners;
  • Priority 2. Completion and implementation of labour law reform and related legislation;
  • Priority 3. Promotion of productive and decent employment, particularly for young men and women;
  • Priority 4. Human resource development through skills development

In the first south-south technical cooperation facilitated by CO Suva between two member states of the ILO, PNG recently signed an MOU in the field of the occupational health and safety with Fiji on World OSH Day, 28 April 2011.