Despite the initiation of a series of public sector reform policies in Papua New Guinea (PNG) since the late 1990s, service delivery and accountability remain weak. There has been a disconnect between the adoption of sound policy making and actual implementation at all levels of government. This has resulted in variation in performance between sectors and over time. Specific issues contributing to poor implementation emphasised in the literature include:
- Political economy: Ministers and senior public officials play an unusually influential role in policy implementation in PNG (May, 2010b). Leading officials have not treated reforms as a priority as they are often sceptical of change and see little benefit to themselves or their supporters from such reforms (Turner and Kavanamur, 2010).
- Decentalisation: Political and administrative decentralisation policies have resulted in the transfer of some functions to provincial and local governments without the necessary funding. There has been frequent breakdown of funding arrangements and communication between the capital and the provinces (May, 2010b).
- Technical capacity: Policies are often announced without properly assessing and ensuring the capacity to implement them. Officials in charge of implementation may resist change and lack the capacity to design and implement changes that would contribute to improved performance (Turner and Kavanamur, 2010). The decline in capacity in many parts of the bureaucracy is partly attributed to the deterioration of training programmes and the migration of more capable public servants to the private sector (May, 2010b).
