CEO’s Introductory Message:
At the NEFC, we pride ourselves as a lead government agency influencing public policy in Papua New Guinea on intergovernmental financing arrangements. Our main function is to provide independent policy advice to the national government on the distribution of operational (goods and services) grants to the provinces and to local-level governments.
Our role and mandate are established under the country’s constitution and defined under Section 117 of the Organic Law on Provincial and Local-level Government.
We believe that the primary role of any government of the day is to provide adequate funding to meet the cost of delivering basic services to its people. Some of these critical services include; maintaining rural roads and airstrips, distributing school materials, maintaining rural health facilities, drug distribution to the health centres and aid posts, extension training to rural farmers and operational materials for the village courts. These are examples of essential services that are critical to the livelihood of Papua New Guineas.
Our specific functions involve; assessing revenues available in the provinces and determining the level of operational (goods and services) grants in the re-current budget to the provinces and local-level governments. We also monitor and review the operational (goods and services) grants on how provinces spend this funding. Thirdly, we conduct a periodic cost of services study to estimate the cost government’s basic service delivery obligations for grant calculation, policy development and budget purposes.
In order to perform our role well and to contribute meaningfully to the public policy debate we must maintain a deep understanding of the challenges to service delivery in our country. This understanding can only be sustained by travelling the country, to every province, and engaging with a wide range of people in government and civil society – we do this.
Our success is due not only to the evidence-based analysis that we provide as policy advice to government but also our commitment to using creative and contemporary communication strategies and technology to get our message across. Therefore, we place a strong emphasis on communication with the use of technology as a vehicle to influence public opinion, drive positive messages and to network with the public, especially the targeted audiences in the provinces.
This updated website is our window to all of Papua New Guinea and the world beyond. Through it we are able to share our information with everyone and it is my sincere hope that NEFC’s evidence-based information will provoke thought, stimulate discussion and ultimately see positive action from its users. Our desire as an organisation is to continually learn and improve, so we welcome your feedback and comments on our website and information.
May you be inspired, informed and educated to speak out on the delivery of basic services.