Trouble in paradise

PNG Surfing Association takes up fight for women. MALUM NALU reports

PAPUA New Guinea surfing classic, Splinters, made an unexpected premiere showing at a Coffee International gender equity and domestic violence against women at the Holiday Inn in Port Moresby last Friday.

Splinters is a surfing documentary that was shot over a period of four years, from 2003-2007, by Californian surfer Adam Pesce and produced by Emmy Award-winning producer, Perrin Chiles.

Its features include:

•       300 hours compressed into 95 minutes;

•      No million-dollar feature actors,  just six local surfers and raw footage of part of the evolution of the surfing history of PNG;

•        Being world-premiered in 2011 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City after being chosen out of 3,000 entries.

 Idyllic beach scene at Lido village, Vanimo, where the Splinters movie was shot.-Pictures by MALUM NALU

Local churches such as St Therese Catholic Church, Lido, will also need to raise their voices against violence against women.

Lido village has some of the best waves in PNG during surfing season.

Splinters then went on to take out awards at the 2011 Audience Award at New Port Beach Film Festival in California, 2011 Winner Best Documentary at London Film Festival, 2011 Official Selection Documentary at Amsterdam Film Festival, 2011 Winner Halekulani Golden Orchid Hawaii International Film Festival, and 2011 Surfer Best Documentary Award out of a poll of 2 million surfers.

PNG Surfing Association president, Andrew Abel, told last Friday’s workshop that three fundamental issues emanated out of Splinters when he signed off the release, and they were:

• Domestic violence against women;

• Empowerment of women through the power of surfing; and

• Responsibility of young people, marriage and obligations of making and raising children, and rule of law.

Abel said surfing communities had been established in Vanimo, Wewak, Madang, New Ireland, and soon-to-be Manus and Bougainville, but they too were not isolated from domestic violence and issues that were demonstrate in Splinters.

“You saw in a small segment of Splinters where a young man is violently hitting and kicking a young girl,” he said.

“This took place at the finals of the 2007 National Surfing Titles, which I was oblivious to as I was busy competing myself, but it was happening in full view of the crowds at the back of the judging and competition area.

“Interestingly, the young man was not one of our surfers, yet his sister he assaulted is a surfer, including their other sibling who is our reigning national open women’s surfing champion, who went on to represent PNG at the 2011 Pacific Games in New Caledonia.

“This happens daily on our streets and in our villages, towns and cities!

“When I was invited in 2011 to New York City for the world premiere (of Splinters) at the Tribeca Film Festival, including New Port Beach, California, and more recently at the Australian premiere in Melbourne, where I did the Q & As to predominantly white audiences, they too were shocked and horrified, but I told them that what they saw in that idyllic coastal village with swaying palm trees, is happening in their very own streets, towns, cities and states.

“I flick on my TV and it is on nightly news and reality shows on nearly every TV station.

“One well-to-do New York lady was so moved by the incident that she demanded that Splinters be shown on the Oprah (Winfrey) Show and be taken around the USA, to highlight what is happening in the most-powerful country in the world, despite all its wealth and power.

“For them, it was a shock, coming from an indigenous person and from a surfer for that matter, from a Pacific island nation that many may have never heard of!”

Abel said through the pursuit of surfing over the last 25 years, he had witnessed as seen in Splinters, how through the power of sports – surfing in this case –real life positive and tangible changes had come about by empowering young women in a male-dominated society, “where they had been suppressed and deprived of their rights to an equal voice and equal opportunities to surf and compete on an equal footing”.

“But more importantly,” he added, “ they can participate in all facets of the surfing and surf tourism industry running in parallel, including being nominated and accepted on the executives of our 10 SAPNG-affiliated surf clubs, where once all the womenfolk were shunned, as seen in Splinters.

“These are small but significant milestones that are the building blocks in the rural and village communities that lead to empowering our womenfolk and enabling them to become leaders and heroes in the pursuit of their dreams, aspirations and passions in life.

“This too can be replicated all over PNG, given the right support at all levels.

“In order for us to collectively achieve the objective of ridding this social evil and malignant tumor that is undermining the fabric of our families, clans, communities and society as a whole, there has to be a fundamental shift in the pendulum in our attitude and that has to start at home.

“Yes, my friends, it starts in the home, and it starts with each and every one of us present here today!”

Californian surfer and filmmaker Adam Pesce disagrees that the graphic wife beating scene is gratuitous.

“While an extreme manifestation, this was very much a part of my experience living there,” he said in an online interview.

“Almost every woman I met had an experience with domestic violence.

“It’s so out of control that there are public service announcements that remind you not to beat your mother, your wife or your daughter.

“It’s tragic and absurd.

“I disagree that the scene is gratuitous.

“If the scene is viewed on its own, without context, sure.

“But given its placement I feel it is strongly tied to the lives of the characters.”

Splinters will have its first official premiere screening in Vanimo in 2013.

·         malumnalu@gmail.com

‘Bold’ 2013 Budget brings more risks

Source: The National, Thursday 06th December, 2012

By MALUM NALU

THE 2013 Budget is a “bold” attempt to improve service delivery at the provincial and district level, according to Asian Development Bank’s PNG country economist Aaron Batten.

Batten, speaking at ADB’s PNG year-in-review at the Grand Papua Hotel in Port Moresby, said this “boldness” brought increased risks, including:

·         Emergence of structural deficit, and unrealistic recurrent expenditure constraint required for a return to surplus; and

·          Capacity of govern­ment to implement scaled-up sub-national funding pipeline.

“The role of ADB, and development partners, is to partner with government to implement their ambitious objectives,” he said.

Batten said the 2013 Budget was framed against a slowing economy, and falling copper and oil exports, resulting in a tightening revenue scenario.

“LNG will help alleviate these pressures, but not for some time, while expenditures grow at a record pace, resulting in a sharp deterioration in the budget balance,” he said.

“Public debt will likely remain relatively moderate by historical standards, but without expenditure restraint, debt will begin to push up against ‘sustainable’ limits.

“Medium-term challenge is whether expenditure gap can be closed.

“Major challenge will be achieving the targets set for the recurrent budget, creating significant downside risks for the ‘return to surplus’.

“New spending is focused on priority sectors (education, health, infrastructure, law-and-order), with majority of ‘new expenditure’ allocated to sub-national government, which will amplify pressure on provincial expenditure systems that have historically struggled to fully implement their funding.”

Meanwhile, ADB’s partnership with PNG has grown in recent years with a significant pipeline of new investments planned for 2013-15, according to country director of Port Moresby resident mission Marcelo Minc.

These focus in particular on transport infrastructure including US$199 million Lae port development;  US$157 million highlands region road improvement with a further US$120 million slated for 2013-15;  US$88 million on rural bridge replacements;  and US$73 million civil aviation development investment programme with a further US$230 million for 2013-15.

“ADB increasingly delegates implementation of projects to PNRM (Port Moresby Resident Mission), which helped to improve the pace of project implementation and the speed of loan disbursements,” Minc said.

Minc said ADB:

•    Continues to strengthen partnership with PNG, ensuring projects are relevant and high impact;

•    Strengthens infrastructure investments by also providing knowledge and leveraging co-financing from donor partners and/or private sector; and

•    Focuses on strong implementation to maximise the  inclusiveness of growth and service delivery.

Big fishing nations fail to cut their overfishing, says PNA

From Anouk Ride in Manila

MANILA, PHILIPPINES, THURSDAY 6 DECEMBER 2012: The Western and Central
Pacific Commission (WCPFC) meeting closed today with a temporary measure that allows big fishing nations to continue to overfish bigeye tuna, said the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA).

The PNA manages the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery – 50% of the world’s skipjack tuna, the most commonly canned tuna, comes from its waters. While skipjack tuna is fished at sustainable levels, bigeye tuna, a popular sashimi fish is overfished – a problem caused by catching juvenile fish around Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and longline fishing vessel catch by the big fishing nations such as EU, US, Japan and the other Asian nations.

Each year the WCPFC brings together the Pacific Island countries and the big fishing nations to meet and decide rules for fishing of tuna throughout the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, the world’s largest tuna fishery. The meeting closed today having decided a new conservation and management measure on tuna which will be applied until the end of 2013. The meeting also banned setting nets on whale sharks in the waters from 20 degrees South to 30 degrees North.

PNA Chair Nanette Malsol said: “This year at the tuna commission meeting, PNA was successful in getting a ban on setting fishing nets around whale sharks and in getting the commission to ‘flick the
switch’ so Pacific countries can see all fishing vessels in their waters that are on the commission vessel monitoring system which closes a loophole for illegal fishing.”

“However, the big fishing nations did not make any significant commitments to cut their overfishing of bigeye tuna. It is the big fishing nations of the EU, US, Japan and Asian nations that have
historically overfished bigeye tuna, it is their longline fishing vessels that are responsible for much of the catch of adult bigeye tuna which is still fished 40% over the sustainable level.”

“This week, Korea and Chinese Taipei only agreed to voluntarily cut their longline catch by 2% and China by 10%.”

“The PNA are global leaders in conservation and management of tuna. Within our waters, which cover 50% of the world’s skipjack tuna supply, the most commonly canned tuna, we still have the world’s best tuna conservation and management measures – fishing effort is capped by a set number of days vessels can fish, there is an independent observer on every one of our fishing vessels, there are limits on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and closure of high seas to all purse seine fishing vessels licenced to fish in our waters.”

“We also will continue to work through leading industry initiatives – such as certification by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) that our skipjack tuna caught without FADs is sustainable – to help supply tuna with the best environmental and social standards to the world.”

“While this year the tuna commission failed to take its responsibilities seriously regarding the fate of tuna, PNA will continue to ensure its skipjack tuna is sustainably managed and push for a better conservation and management measure at the next WCPFC in 2013.”

Australia pledges A$20 million for TB in Western province

By Liam Fox, 

ABC

Australia's Foreign Minister has announced an extra AUD$20 million to tackle tuberculosis in Papua New Guinea's remote Western Province.

Bob Carr pledged the extra funding at the opening of the annual Australia-PNG ministerial forum, in Port Moresby.

He says Australia wants to cure 85 percent of TB cases in Western Province and the money will be used to expand local health services and train staff.

It is in addition to $11 million dollars that is being used to upgrade TB facilities at the hospital on Daru Island.

Western province is only a short boat ride from the outer islands of the Torres Strait in far north Queensland.

It has the worst health indicators in PNG and a growing number of cases of drug-resistance.

Senator Carr has already announced Australia would contribute millions of dollars towards the PNG government's plan to provide free education and plans for 1,400 nursing and midwifery scholarships.

The Australian Greens Party says the package is a sweetener in return for the PNG Government reopening a detention centre on Manus Island, where Australia's sending asylum seekers for processing.

But the Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the spending is justified.

"We've made it clear that we want our presence on Manus Island to be of benefit, which is an area doing it tough, and is in need of assistance. A part of Papua New Guinea, which is an imminently justifiable target for Australia's aid assistance," said Mr Bowen.

Papua New Guinea: Banking the great unbanked

OXFORD BUSINESS GROUP The potential of mobile phone banking in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been evident ever since a local telecoms company launched a service in 2009 allowing subscribers to purchase electricity by using pre-paid airtime credit. For PNG’s banks, it presents the easiest route to tapping into the nation’s 87.5% rural population. Loi Martin Bakani, the governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, supports this idea, stating at the 2012 PNG Advantage Summit in September, “For the majority of the rural population to become part of the market economy, financial inclusion of the rural majority through financial literacy, microbanking and technological innovation through the use of mobile phone banking is a must”. However, microbanking is as much a necessity. PNG’s mountainous, forested and fractured landmass, including large islands with substantial population centres, has long been a barrier to political and economic inclusion. The proliferation of mobile network coverage across 70% of PNG’s 425,000 km has overcome much of these difficulties, however, and through the early adoption of mobile banking technologies, PNG’s potential mirrors mobile money exemplars the Philippines and Kenya. “Papua New Guineans are very keen technology adaptors and will readily pick up on all new technologies,” John Mangos, the CEO of Digicel, told OBG. "Financial services is one area where mobile devices can be used to a far greater extent”. The expansion of the banking sector is piggybacking on PNG’s mobile networks, which had a total of 2.4m subscribers in 2011, equivalent to a 38% market penetration rate, up from just 4.6% in 2007. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that some 85% of PNG’s population has little or no access to banking services. Expanded network coverage has largely eliminated the requirement for hard infrastructure investments in remote or potentially low-yield regions, issues that perpetuated poor branch and service coverage, making retail banking an inefficient and loss-making business for banks, according to Ian Clyne, the group CEO of Bank South Pacific (BSP). A move to digital banking and electronic transactions is set to circumvent these issues, providing cost-effective and efficient services to the unbanked. The switch also helps reduce operational risks, minimise the transit of large quantities of cash and improve internal accounting transparency. This has been embraced by BSP, which already has 250,000 registered e-banking users and is making a concerted strategic effort to move its mass-market customers out of its branches. By rolling out “Branchless Banking”, BSP is providing electronic services to its customers through ATMs, mobile point-of-sale units, mobile phone banking and subsidiary BSP Rural. Recording a net annual profit of $326.56m in March 2012, BSP’s service modernisation strategy is expected to deliver more than 1.5m retail customers by 2014, and although market space is restricted, diversification of the industry’s service providers is expected. Earlier this year, PNG’s central bank granted a mobile banking licence to Digicel Financial Services, a Digicel subsidiary, stating that, “Non-bank financial service providers, such as mobile network operators and postal service companies, are in a better position to extend financial services to the niche market using their extensive mobile network coverage and their existing network of agents around the country.” The central bank’s move builds on the success of PNG Post’s “Salim Moni Kwik (send money quickly)” service, as well as the Sepik Savings and Loans Society launching its own mobile banking service this month, “MiCash”, in partnership with Nationwide Microbank. Westpac and ANZ Bank are also reported to be expanding their operations, but are trailing behind BSP, which alone moves 80% of the nation’s cash. While the technological and regulatory environment is certainly conducive to further development of the industry, according to a recent multi-lateral study led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), further mobile-led e-banking applications may be present, given PNG’s limited utilisation of cash. The shift to electronic payment options for goods and services, and the limited need for cash in rural areas, may “minimise the need to build an extensive network of rural cash points from the outset”, the IFC report concluded. With a large number of rural companies already turning to mobile banking for salary payments, which in turn is encouraging the development of a savings culture, this would play well into the hands of mobile banking service providers.