Strengthening Papua New Guinean women, youths, contractors, and government officers’ capacities in road construction works

Wewak, Papua New Guinea – The EU Funded UN Joint STREIT Programme continues to train more young people from rural Sepik with the skills required for decent employment opportunities in road transport infrastructure development in Papua New Guinea. In its latest step, the Programme organised 4 trainings targeting skills development at TVET level, contractors, and government stakeholders in East and West Sepik. A total of 77 participants benefitted from these trainings, which were conducted in Wewak, Yawasoro, and Port Moresby.

The first training, “Construction of Pipe Culvert”, was attended by 22 youths, comprising 4 young girls and 18 young men. The trainees were mostly Grade 8 and 10 leavers that were selected with the help of ward members from rural communities in the Sepik Region like Bewani-Wutung – Onei, Bumbita, Drekiki, East Yangoru, North Wosera, Sausso and Wewak Rural Local Level Government (LLGs). Delivered in collaboration with the Yawasoro Technical and Vocational Training (TVET) Centre in Wewak, this training was the third part of 5-module courses developed and implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) under the EU-STREIT PNG Programme.

Some topics covered in the training were Introduction to Cross Drainages, Types, Function and importance in road construction; Types of Pipe Culvert, Bedding of Pipe Culvert, Catch Pit and Methodology of Construction; Protection and Head Walls (Gabion Retaining Walls); Protection and Head Walls (Stone Masonry Wall) and; Decent Work and Occupational Safety and Health. The training included one day of theory session, and four days of practical sessions.

The second training, “Orientation Training to Contractors”, was attended by 16 contractor representatives, including engineers and technical officers, currently undertaking road maintenance work under EU-STREIT PNG in East and West Sepik provinces.

Conducted in Wewak, this 1-day training covered topics including Items of Works in ILO contracts, Work Methodology, Quality Assurance and Quality Control, Sequence of Works and Forms and Format to be used in construction, Schedule of Work (S Curve), Labour Based Equipment Supported Approach in Construction and Decent Work, PPEs, Safety Plan and Labour Camp Standard. This training was an initiative to train contractors on processes and procedures in line with ILO contracts for road construction and maintenance projects.

The third training, “Contract Management, Dispute Resolution and Arbitration In-Roads”, held in Wewak and attended by 13 Government Officers from the provincial administrations and district levels authorities in East and West Sepiks. The trainees were mostly engineers and technical officers working in Wewak, Maprik, Angoram, Yangoru Saussia and Vanimo Green Districts. This 3-day training was delivered in collaboration with the Papua New Guinea University of Technology Civil Engineering Department.

Mr James Baloiloi, the Acting Provincial Administrator of East Sepik Province and Executive Director Provincial Division of Works, stated that the concept of capacity development training is the best approach to training government officials to enrich their knowledge and skills to deal with road transport infrastructure.

The fourth training, “Rural Transport Information Management System (RoTIMS) and Construction Site Monitoring (CSM)”, attended by 26 Government Officers from the Department of Works and Highways, Port Moresby Headquarters, East Sepik and West Sepik provincial administrations and district level authorities.

This course was the sixth module of an 18-module training course developed and implemented by the Papua New Guinea University of Technology Civil Engineering Department and the International Labour Organization under the EU-STREIT PNG Programme.

This 4-day training covered Introduction and Overview of RoTIMS and CSM, General Setup and Installation of RoTIMS, CSM, Map Source, SWMAP and QGIS, Obtaining sample inventories from field using Handheld GPS device and SWMAP, Entering the inventories details, Road and crossing structure Maintenance Planning and Contract Management Module of RoTIMS.

Marco Arena, Programme Officer for the EU delegation to PNG, stated that platforms like RoTIMS will be very applicable to PNG where there is diverse geography and accessibility is limited. We started using this platform in two provinces of East and West Sepik but will work for the entire Country at no additional cost after providing training to provinces.

Gibson Holemba, Executive Director/Deputy Secretary, Network Planning, Design & Standards of Department of Works & Highways stated that “RoTIMS system will able to support updating road network which will help to prioritise road network for ‘Connect PNG’ in the Country. Similarly, this application will provide further support to develop provincial road transport master plans with the technical assistance of ILO in East and West Sepik provinces.

Shailendra Kumar Jha, Chief Technical Advisor of ILO-STREIT Team also stressed that the RoTIMS application is a complete web-based management system for Department of Works and Highway and provincial Division of Works where they can update road network, record road inventory, create annual road maintenance plan (ARMP), update contract management data, and do online monitoring of the road transport activities.

Reichert Thanda, the DNPM Acting First Assistant Secretary, Development Cooperation and Management Division, said that there was no any reliable application exist within the Country to manage rural road network and Country was in dark while planning for the rural roads which will helps national planning to gather real-time data of road network.

These trainings have provided a new window of opportunity for learning for the 77 women, youths, engineers and officials at different partner and stakeholder levels in road maintenance and construction. These trainings will help youths to find employment in the construction industry, contractors to conduct road construction and maintenance projects professionally and government officials on new global interventions in the maintenance and construction of road projects.

The EU-STREIT PNG Programme, being implemented as a UN Joint Programme (FAO as the leading agency, and ILO, ITU, UNCDF and UNDP as partners), is the largest grant-funded Programme of the European Union in the country and the Pacific region. The Programme aims to help improve the lives of the people from East and West Sepik provinces, by focusing on increasing sustainable and inclusive economic development of rural areas through improved economic returns and opportunities from cocoa, vanilla and fishery value chains while strengthening and improving the efficiency of value chain enablers, including the business environment and supporting sustainable, climate-proof transport and energy infrastructure development.