DCommunity leaders in the Labuta Local Level Government (LLG) recently took part in a leadership training under the Village Empowerment and Governance Program (VEGP).
The training was supported through the Papua New Guinea – Australia Partnership and was held to equip community leaders with skills and knowledge to ensure community needs are addressed.
Buac village leader at Labuta LLG Mr Kope Kolas said that while PNG villages had existing traditional organising systems, the increasing and complex pace of change in PNG (faced with threats such as COVID-19) required leaders to be able to respond with more conventional approaches adopted by government.
“The leadership training is helpful; we’ve learned how to align existing village decision making systems with the provincial and national government policies,” he said.
“While there are good government policies for rural development, many of these policies fail because there are no implementing partners at the rural level. The training has really helped to empower us community leaders to confidently engage with provincial leaders and deliver at community level,” he said.
“We are now seeing villages themselves become the implementing partners of government which in turn leads to more coordinated approaches and accountability to receive vital funding for health and food security and more opportunities for women, youth and people living with a disability.
The VEGP started in 2018 - 2019 in 12 villages in Nawaeb District. It has demonstrated success in supporting villages to organise their own leadership, establish and maintain order, identify local resources and work with their respective Local Level Governments and District Authorities to achieve outcomes called for by the community.
In 2019, the chairpersons of the four villages in Guambot got together through VEGP, mobilised their communities and constructed a first ever biogas project in the district.
They also built an elementary school classroom on their own without external support. Due to the success of establishing the village governance structure, the chairpersons of the four villages were invited by the Ward Member to join the Ward Development Committee, thus linking people more directly to government.
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Community leaders from the Labuta LLG