Economic Progress and Development in Papua and New Guinea
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00318.x |
| Date | 01 January 1968 |
| Published date | 01 January 1968 |
| Author | A. W. McCasker |
Economic Progress and Development in
Papua and
New
Guinea
By A.
W.
McCASKER
Mr.
McCasker is Economic Adviser to the Papua and New Guinea Administration.
THE Territory
of
Papua and New Guinea constitutes an enlightening case
study of the process of economic development both because it provides a
microcosm of many of the generalproblems of development and because it also
presents a marked variety of novel features.
In a formal sense, Papua and New Guinea are distinct entities, the former
being a Crown possession and the latter a trustee territory. For most practical
purposes,however, the distinction meanslittle asthe boundarybetween the two
territories has no geographical or ethnical significance, and the Common-
wealth
of
Australia administers them together as a single unit through the
agency of an Administrator appointed by the Governor-General of the
Commonwealth.
The
administering authority is committed to a programme
of
economic,
social and political advance aimed at developing a single country under a stable
government, backed by an integrated and viable economy. It therefore has to
solve a combination
of
administrative and economic problems at all levels. In
particular, the specialized departments and agencies involved in development
activities have to be fitted into a framework of general government services
that has essentially grown out
of
the original necessity to bring law and order
to a people living in primitive and widely-separated communities.
The
whole
apparatus has therefore to be adapted to new and more dynamic purposes.
Planning and implementation by all departments and agencies have to be
integrated and there also has to be adequate machinery to consider and decide
between competing priorities, on which the parties concerned are often likely
to have differing points
of
view.
The
achievement of effective co-ordination
of
administrative activities and
the selection of correct priorities are at least equally as important to develop-
ment as the conventional economic problem of availability
of
physical re-
sources, manpower and capital for direct productive effort.
It
therefore seems
most helpful to regard the problems of economic development as an amalgam
which is partly economic and partly administrative. In this way a truer
synthesis of the problem of development may be obtained than by an attempt
to deal separately and therefore more narrowly with administrative and
economic matters.
Land and People
The
Territory has a population
of
approximately
2,200,000,
in some
600
language groups, with an expatriate component
of
about 35,000, and this
population is increasing at an estimated rate
of
2.4
per cent
per
annum. About
95 per cent of the indigenous population live in rural areas, although the main
towns have been growing rapidly and there are now about
104,000
indigene in
293
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