Papua New Guinea : Sanitation, Water Supply and Hygiene in Urban Informal Settlements

In 2012 Papua New Guinea undertook a
national Service Delivery Assessment of rural water, rural
sanitation, urban water and urban sanitation services to
identify coverage and targets, how well services are being
delivered and the financing shortfalls in these subsectors.
Immediately following this assessment, stakeholders, through
a national policy task force, have developed a draft of the
country s first National Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
(WASH) Policy. During the course of the assessment and
policy development, peri-urban and informal settlements have
been consistently identified as areas which are
underserviced and overlooked for water and sanitation
services. The need to provide affordable and appropriate
services in settlements, as well as improve health and
living conditions, was highlighted. Amongst stakeholders, it
was agreed that baseline information on WASH conditions in
settlements was needed in order to develop strategies and to
respond appropriately to needs of settlements in the future.
Previous settlement research has focused on urbanization,
housing ownership, land issues, employment, and
anthropology, but WASH has not been researched specifically
or in depth. Therefore in 2014, the Water and Sanitation
Program of the World Bank (WSP), together with key
stakeholders, conducted research in informal settlements in
the capital Port Moresby and a representative provincial
town (Wewak) to understand the conditions, aspirations,
barriers and opportunities to improve water, sanitation and
hygiene for informal settlers.