Market Conditions Challenge Community Development

Economic changes have made true community development challenging. Prior to the 2008 recession, a number of developers worked in this field, focusing on small projects that fit with the surrounding community.

Now these projects are less common, according to Stephen Arms, a managing member at Marthasville Development in Georgia, which focuses on sustainable, mixed-use development opportunities. Developers have been slow to recover from the economic downturn, and national firms have bought up local and regional development offices to control local markets and increase their inventory of land.

External factors have also contributed to making community development a more difficult endeavour. Economic recovery has favoured places that have good school districts and where residents already have a strong sense of place, allaying the need for developers to help create these conditions. Production capacity is also limited, and developers still face stringent financing.

In the future, Mr. Arms imagines that community development will become a factor of two forces: the market working things out and industry figuring out how to better compete on the local, regional, and national levels.

Papua New Guinea Leads the World in Linguistic Diversity

With more than 800 indigenous languages, Papua New Guinea’s topography has helped it to become the most linguistically diverse country in the world. The island nation east of Indonesia is filled with deep valleys and difficult terrain, which has resulted in numerous groups living in relative isolation. Their languages developed independently, which has created a large number of distinctly different tongues. Some of the languages, such as Abaga, are spoken by fewer than 10 people, and many of the languages are in danger of extinction.

The languages of Papua New Guinea, which has a population of about 4 million , can generally be divided into the categories of Austronesian and Papuan languages. The Austronesian languages are related to a language family that encompasses Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and New Zealand. The Papuan languages do not make up a unified language family. Instead, they are categorised into about 60 subfamilies with 10 languages each.

Paga Hill Estate Pursues Peaceful Community Resettlement

A master-planned mixed-use community located near the central business district of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Paga Hill Estate plans to project a modern and progressive image of the country to the international community. Since 2002, Paga Hill Development Company (PHDC) has engaged with members of the informal Paga Hill settlement community to develop a resettlement solution. 

PHDC’s comprehensive relocation plan for the informal settlement community, informed by extensive community consultations and detailed social mapping, was endorsed by the United Nations as setting a positive precedent in Papua New Guinea. In addition to offering relocation financial support, manpower and logistical assistance to the settlers, local NGOs were also engaged to provide early childhood and adult literacy programs, financial literacy and business training as well as basic first aid. 

Settlers from Paga Hill and the host community were employed, where possible, to undertake the necessary civil and construction work involved in establishing the new community at Tagua in the Six Mile region. PHDC also worked with local authorities to develop new mechanisms for the provision of infrastructure and services at Tagua. Residents of Tagua now enjoy rights to their own block of land via a Land Use Agreement. 

Following the completion of the resettlement to Tagua, PHDC provided financial and mentoring support to the Tagua Community Development Committee for the first twelve months of its operations. The resettlement was the subject of the documentary film Humanitarian Resettlement in Papua New Guinea, which was screened at the PNG Human Rights Film Festival in 2014.