Papua New Guinea’s landscape consists of rugged terrain with mountainous and fast flowing rivers, surrounded by slopes and valleys and is spread over about 600 islands. It is home to approximately 8.6 million people. About 80% of them live in the rural and remote communities. Our people speak almost 12% of the world’s languages, and, ethnically we belong to more than 800 distinct language and cultural groups with differing traditional beliefs and forms of social structures. Papua New Guinea is one of the world’s most diverse, isolated and rural based nations, with many remote and inaccessible communities. Therefore, getting services to all citizens is a very challenging task. The human diversity and hostile geographical conditions cause poor accessibility, high cost of logistics and supply, and administrative difficulties. These are challenges faced by government, development partners, private sector, civil society organisations and whole of PNG. Politically Papua New Guinea has a multi-party Westminster style of democracy where the political party with the highest number of elected members and coalition partners, form government. Administratively, the country seeks to address these challenges through decentralisation of roles and responsibilities to subnational levels; these are our 22 Provinces, 89 Districts, 313 LLGs and 6131 Wards. The recent trend has been towards increased financial devolution to provincial, district and local level government. Capacity issues at the sub-national levels of government most times limit the implementation of central government policies and public finance management. This has led to inefficiencies in the public service including enormous growth in corruption. Papua New Guinea is witnessing a paradox of plenty, where the county’s resource wealth is not translating into increased opportunities and participation for all Papua New Guineans, especially the larger majority in the rural areas, the vulnerable and marginalised segments of society including women, children, elderly, people living with disabilities, youth, people living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV) and people suffering other illnesses. The future of Papua New Guinea is exciting. Making the right choices at this critical juncture will not only benefit more than 8 million people, but also place the country in a pivotal position as a model nation for other developing states within the Asia-Pacific Region. “In God We Trust” is the core value of People’s Party. Therefore, we belief in putting the interest of our people first and foremost by advocating for strong and decisive policies that promote integral human development. People’s Party focuses on major key policies to address fundamental development issues and challenges. During the Party’s 15 years of existence, we have contributed significantly to the development of Papua New Guinea. The People’s Party has; 1. Provided strong and decisive leadership, 2. Supported stability in government, 3. Promoted, supported and respected the rule of law, 4. Discouraged corrupt practices, and 5. Delivered much needed services to the people of Papua New Guinea. Our record speaks for itself and the party continues to drive its agenda on good leadership. People’s Party has provided leaders to transform a district, province and the country with decisive leadership. Our founding leader and mentor, Sir Peter Ipatas has transformed Enga Province from a backwater to to where it is today as one of the leading provinces in the country. Currently our Parliamentary Leader and Associate Professor, Hon. Dr. William Tongamp is building the relative new province of Jiwaka from ground zero. Given 10 more years, Jiwaka can become a province to be reckoned in the Central Highlands. The Party’s first termer, stalwart, the Member for Wabag, medical doctor-cum-politician Hon. Dr. Thomas Jeremiah Lino, is following the footsteps to transforming Wabag District in Enga Province with much needed basic services that have been lacking for the decades since independence. Senior Member of the party from Jimi, a seasoned health officer is now turning Jimi from being one of the most rugged and challenging districts in Jiwaka to a more accessible district with good roads, bridges and agriculture produce that is benefitting the people in that part of the country. People’s Party was the first to deliver a Free Education Policy in PNG and hundreds and thousands of the nation’s children have benefitted from this policy over the last 20 years. Our vision is leaving behind a legacy in human resource development which will continue for generations to come. The party has delivered state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly new airports around the country under the leadership of the Member for Esa’a’la Hon. Davis Manda Steven. Seeing the challenges faced in the delivery of basic goods and services to our people, our policies are geared toward addressing the impediments that affect the systems of our governance. To achieve the government’s development priorities and goals stated in the PNG Government’s Vision 2050 statement, Medium Term Development Priority 3, 2018-2022 (MTDP III) and other national policies and strategies, the Peoples Party believes that we should provide good and deceive leadership that puts the people first. People’s Party policies concentrate on principles of honesty, utilising our comparative advantages in land and agriculture, putting money where it is needed the most and eradicating the many bottle necks in our public service machinery for effective and efficient delivery of services. All Papua New Guineans, including our entire leadership body, as much as ordinary citizens need to assume greater responsibilities to ensure that the wealth of our country is shared equally. As a political party, we recognise the need to be relevant, consistent and focused on the many development challenges that continue to face this country after 45 years of independence.

People’s Party is a people-centred party with financial membership and supporters throughout the country who are mostly subsistence farmers. This third (3rd) revised PP Policy 2020-2027 has emanated from a post-analysis of the past and current achievements, challenges and lessons learnt. We also take into serious consideration the views, wishes and cries of our people, the current socio-economic indicators, our political environment, the public service machinery and its challenges and achievements in bringing goods and services to the rural population. All the above considerations have been put through a workshop attended by professionals and affiliates of the party in November of 2019. Our policies designed to be are more practical and to contribute significantly to the development of our country. The party has like-minded people who share the same belief and values and are serious in ensuring tangible development is received and felt in the lives of our people. The party’s six (6) main pillars are to see a prosperous Papua New Guinea, where there is; strong and decisive leadership, a stable government, effective public services, zero-tolerance to corruption, justice and a safe and peaceful society with a healthy and educated population. PP policies encompass the key development goals of Papua New Guinea including the Vision 2050 statement, MTDP III and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. PP Policies and its key strategic areas are mostly people and rural focused and the party will continue to aggressively pursue them with greater involvement of our people as partners in development. Our people will take responsibility upon themselves to sustainably develop their resources and use their land to improve their standard of living.

Compliance, monitoring and evaluation is vital for accountability; to assess progress; for continuous improvement; to motivate stakeholders involved in PP to give them a sense of achievement; to enhance credibility of PP development work; and for learning and making a strong case for further support and resources for improving Party image, marketing and appealing to the wider community. Implementation of the policy will be monitored and evaluated by PPS and the information used for future planning, resource allocation and management. Key high level indicators are assigned against key objectives in the policy. All PP officials, party members, parliamentary, provincial and LLGs leaders and other stakeholders will monitor and evaluate the implementation of the policy through reporting on their own planned programs. The PPS is responsible for overall performance reporting. The policy will be reviewed and updated every five years to keep it relevant to contemporary development and political issues and to incorporation of key lessons learned.