Event: Challenges for the next generation of leaders in Papua New Guinea
After 40 years of independence, there are good reasons to be optimistic about the future of Papua New Guinea. The country is endowed with vast natural resources, a capacity to feed itself, and a young population. Papua New Guinea also benefits from its proximity to the global centre of economic gravity in East Asia. But negative trends — in the economy, law and order, health and education — do not augur well for progress in raising living standards. The next generation of leaders in Papua New Guinea will need to be innovative if they are to turn these trends around and implement policies that deliver rather than promise long-term sustainable development.
Join us for a conversation with Sean Dorney and Jenny Hayward-Jones who will discuss Jenny’s research on the challenges the next generation of leaders in Papua New Guinea will face.
After eight years at the Lowy Institute, Jenny is leaving us so please join us for drinks and canapés after the conversation to farewell her and meet the other members of the Melanesia team who will be continuing the Institute’s work in the region.
Sean Dorney is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute. After reporting on the Pacific (with a particular focus on Papua New Guinea) for over four decades, Sean left the ABC in August 2014. During his time with the ABC he won a Walkley for his coverage of the Aitape tsunami and was both deported and awarded an MBE by the Papua New Guinean Government. He is the author of a new Lowy Institute Paper, The Embarrassed Colonialist, and of Papua New Guinea: People, Politics and History since 1975 and The Sandline Affair: Politics and Mercenaries and the Bougainville Crisis.
Jenny Hayward-Jones is the Director of the Melanesia Program at the Lowy Institute. Jenny manages the Australia-PNG Network and Australia-PNG Emerging Leaders Dialogue, and convenes regular public events on Papua New Guinea. She is also the author of several research papers on Australia’s relations with the Pacific Islands region.
