Three Myths about Papua New Guinea’s Development

Background

UNESCO’s latest report Global Education Monitoring Report: Inclusion and education – All means all (2020) sheds more light on the global learning crisis. In the Global South an insufficient number of children finish primary and secondary school, and many when they are able to go to school, learn almost nothing. The Brookings Institution, for example, famously pointed out that developing countries are 100 years behind in terms of providing access to schooling as compared to industrialized countries (Winthrop & McGivney, 2016). Similarly, the OECD’s PISA for development show dismal learning outcomes for 15-year-old in reading, maths, and science in the participating developing countries (OECD, 2020).

This year’s UNESCO report includes an analysis of school completion rates in Papua New Guinea (see below), made possible by the recently published 2016-18 Papua New Guinea Demographic and Health Survey (PNG DHS 2016-18). For the first time in November 2019, Papua New Guinea (PNG) made all the data available for researchers. The survey was implemented by the National Statistical Office from October 2016 to December 2018 and included 16,021 households (15,198 females and 7,333 males from 15 to 49 years old) across the country. Since the male sample may suffer from selection bias (e.g. overrepresentation of unemployed males), the data for females are deemed more reliable.

The PNG surveys were held between October 2016 and December 2018, and all data are now publicly available (http://www.statcompiler.com). It is unclear why the Pacific Datahub, allegedly a repository for all statistics for the Pacific region, does not include them in their databases (https://pacificdata.org/).

Given the dearth of reliable data on PNG society, we wish to do a quick first examination to put the PNG development achievements in context. SDG4 is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In order for a country to achieve Target 4.3: “By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.” Men and women, however, must first gain access to tertiary education by completing secondary education.

In order to allow for a meaningful interpretation of PNG data, we compare its national average to that in other Pacific Islands countries where possible, as well as East African Countries at a similar level of development.

We will debunk 3 myths about PNG development, using official data provided by national government to the United Nations, and published in http://data.worldbank.org, except when the indicator is labeled DHS for health and education data it comes from the USAid’s Domestic and Health Surveys.

The richest country in the Pacific?

Humankind has always needed myths as a short explanation for phenomena they did not necessarily understand well. Let’s look at three of them:

• Is PNG the richest country in the Pacific?

• Is PNG doing better than East African countries in health outcomes?

• Is PNG assuring access to education, through the free education policies since 2014?

The first is the easiest myth to debunk, if we accept Gross Domestic Product per capita as a measure of wealth. Since there are no alternative measures, an alternative quantitative framework is not available. As we can see in the table below PNG is not the richest country in the Pacific as measured in 2017 international dollars. Its GDP per capita is highest compared to East African countries, but not exceeding its average by much.

GDP pc for selected Pacific Islands and East African Countries (2017 international $) (2018)

PNG doing better than Africa in health outcomes?

While GDPpc of the Pacific Islands countries is higher, how do they perform In terms of life expectancy, and child mortality under 5. Regrettably there are no data at the province level for maternal or pregnancy-related mortality. Average life expectancy at birth in PNG falls below 65 years, and thus the country ranks 19th among the 30 countries for which data are available for our sample. Life expectancy is higher in 12 Pacific Islands states and 6 East African countries.

Life Expectancy at Birth for selected Pacific and East-African Countries (2018)

Regarding child mortality under 5 per 1,000 live births, PNG is in 16th place with 11 Pacific Islands states and 6 East African countries having lower rates and performing better.

With regard to maternal mortality rate, only for 3 countries are there national estimates available in the DHS data: PNG with 171 Zambia 252, and Burundi with 334 maternal mortality per 100,000 live births. Although this may be an unfair comparison, average rates of maternal mortality in Australia and in the European Union are stable at 6, a much lower number.

In sum, regarding wealth level and health outcome PNG is not leading in for the countries in this set, but about half-way. Since the East African countries are at a lower income level, PNG seems thus to be relatively under-performing both in prosperity as well as health outcome measures. A handful of African countries that are similar or lower level of GDPpc do much better, while as expected several do worse.

It would be helpful to look at what can be learned from countries that perform better in the health dimension while having lower levels of wealth. Experience in Africa shows that a series of low-cost interventions can substantially reduce infant mortality under 5 years old, and maternal mortality.

PNG is assuring access to education?

The added value of examining the DHS data is mostly regarding the education data, because the World Bank data set does not include data after 2010. They allow both international comparisons as well as detailed comparisons among PNG provinces.

First we look at the international comparison for adult literacy and illiteracy, but also at the percentage of the population that finished at least higher education (grade 12). We will focus on the female population because the literature shows development interventions targeted at females produce better results, and also because a larger number of females was included in this survey and the strong probability of selection bias among male respondents. 

As to illiteracy and literacy, they are available for 10 countries in the DHS survey. The 2 dimensions complement each other. For both indicators, PNG is outperformed by 7 East African states, which however are at a lower wealth level as measure by GDPpc.

Female literacy and illiteracy for PNG and East African countries (2018)

Regarding the numbers of females completing secondary education, PNG is outperformed by a lower number of countries: Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. It can be seen that Kenya’s completion rates for higher education are exceptionally high. 

Percentage of female population who finished highschool (2018)

Here is the same graph without Kenya:

Percentage of female population who finished highschool (without Kenya) (2018)

The DHS data allow for more detailed analysis by age cohort and wealth quintile. In the 2020 UNESCO report it says: “Papua New Guinea, for instance, effectively eliminated tuition fees up to grade 10 in 2012 (Howes et al., 2014; UNICEF, 2017), but completion rates remain low.” In other words, the free education policies have not yet produced results since 2012. It seems something is amiss.

The UNESCO report concludes: “Results show that Papua New Guinea faces considerable challenges to achieve target 4.1, compared with other resource-rich countries. Average completion rates at all education levels are almost identical to those of Angola but well below those of neighbouring Timor-Leste.” (p. 203). These data are for age cohorts and are different from the women or men with upper secondary completed which are for the whole population.

Completions rates education PNG, Angola and Timor Leste by Wealth Quintile (2018)

The UNESCO report, therefore, makes the point that other countries like Angola and Timor L’Este have been more successful in converting mining and oil & gas revenues into higher completion school rates. In PNG the inequality between completion rates of the richest and the poorest quintile of the population is highest.

Final Remarks

With regard to GPD per capita, PNG average wealth is lower than 4 other Pacific Island Countries in terms of GDP per capita (constant 2017 $)

Concerning health, life expectancy in PNG is lower than in 12 Pacific Islands Countries and 5 East African countries. Regarding child mortality under 5 per 1,000 live births, PNG is in 16th place with 11 Pacific Islands Countries and 6 East African countries having lower rates and performing better. For maternal mortality per 100,000 live births there are insufficient data to make meaningful comparisons.

As to education, illiteracy and literacy data are available for 10 East African countries for this sample in the DHS survey, but no other PIC. For both indicators, PNG is outperformed by 7 East African states, which however are at lower wealth level as measure by GDPpc.

Regarding the numbers of females who complete secondary education, PNG is outperformed by 3 East African countries: Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia. In another article, we will analyze the relations between some wealth indicators and the completion rates for secondary education for females.

This brief analysis based on recent Domestic and Health Survey data seems to confirm the general picture arising from the recently published Human Development Report 2020. In this report, wealth, health and education data are combined in one single index number, the Human Development Index. Here we were able to include education data for 2018 rather than for 2010. 

The fact that PNG's HDI ranks only 155th among 187 countries, that is the bottom 20% of countries in terms of human development, the lowest rank for any country in the Pacific, despite having received massive amounts of aid over the last decades, provides ample food for thought.