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With research staff from more than 70 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

David Spielman

David Spielman is the director of IFPRI’s Innovation Policy and Scaling Unit and has been with the institute since 2004. His research agenda covers a range of topics including agriculture and rural development policy; agricultural science, technology, and innovation; plant genetic resources and seed systems; agricultural extension and advisory services; and community-driven rural development.

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Projects

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the Papua New Guinea National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) have teamed up to support data-driven policy dialogue and formulation. This project is designed to provide an in-depth agricultural strategy report to provide the foundation for informing key agricultural development challenges and opportunities in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Analysis for the report will draw from recent data collection efforts in PNG and utilize comparative analyses from other countries in the region to better evaluate the key factors of production to improve competitiveness within the country and inform investments and programs aimed to jumpstart the agricultural transformation process throughout all stages.

Research topics include:

Project duration: 2021 – 2022

Contact

Emily Schmidt

Funders

Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through the Australia High Commission (AHC) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Partners

National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) of Papua New Guinea

National Research Institute (NRI) of Papua New Guinea

Publications

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Working Paper

Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report

2026Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; Andam, Kwaw S.
Details

Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report

The Papua New Guinea Low-Skill Urban Wage Survey (PLUWS 2025) was designed to fill an information gap on low-skill wage employment and dietary purchasing power in select urban areas across Papua New Guinea. Telephone interviews were conducted from June 2nd through November 10th of 2025, that purposefully interviewed urban wage earners in low- or low-medium1 skill occupations in cities where the Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) is also collecting monthly fresh food prices. In doing so, the survey collected information from individuals based in Port Moresby, Kokopo, Lae, Mount Hagen, Banz, Goroka, and Daru, with a focus of achieving a total survey sample that supported gender disaggregated analysis of wage rates, payment preferences, purchasing power, and household and individual characteristics of low- and medium-low skill wage earners. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) partnered with a large PNG mobile phone company, Digicel, who randomly selected mobile phone clients from comprehensive lists of users geographically mapped to each of the urban cities identified for survey implementation. Two sampling strategies were implemented (described in more detail below) which resulted in a lower-bound (e.g., greater share of informal employment, less training or education, and lower wage rates) and upper-bound sample of low-wage earners. The final survey sample consists of 590 low- and medium-low skilled wage workers. Of which, approximately 2/3 of survey respondents are men (69% men and 31% women). The survey asked questions about individual characteristics (gender, age, marital status, education, etc.) of the respondent and the respondent’s household (assets, household composition, decision-making regarding earned incomes, etc.); characteristics of respondents’ employment; preferences for wage payment in money or in-kind; and the respondents’ diet quality. This report provides results tables and a discussion of the descriptive statistics by gender and sample approach (lower-bound and upper-bound) of low-skill wage workers.

Year published

2026

Authors

Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; Andam, Kwaw S.

Citation

Mahrt, Kristi; Schmidt, Emily; and Sikas-Iha, Helmtrude; and Andam, Kwaw S. 2026. Papua New Guinea low-skill urban wage survey (2025) report. Papua New Guinea Food Policy Strengthening Working Paper 11. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/181719

Country/Region

Papua New Guinea

Keywords

Melanesia; Oceania; Surveys; Labour; Households

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Working Paper

Regional implications of public investments and external shocks in Papua New Guinea: An economywide analysis

2025Dorosh, Paul A.; Fang, Peixun; Pradesha, Angga
Details

Regional implications of public investments and external shocks in Papua New Guinea: An economywide analysis

Improvements in telecommunications have enabled a tremendous increase in the flow of information across Papua New Guinea. Although transport costs remain high between various parts of the main island of Papua New Guinea, as well as between the main island and other parts of the country (e.g. the islands of New Britain and Bougainville to the East), phone and internet conditions enable government, traders and entrepreneurs to share market information that reduces transactions costs and improves market function. Nonetheless, there remain major differences in agricultural production, income sources and demand patterns across regions that are important to take into account in analyzing the impacts of external shocks and formulating development strategies. Earlier work on PNG by Schmidt et al., (2021) explored the effects of Covid-related income and world rice price shocks with a partial equilibrium model of PNG’s rice economy. Diao et al., (2021) used a regional multi-market model to analyze broader effects of Covid-19 and other shocks to agriculture and household incomes in four regions of PNG. Various other studies, including Dorosh and Pradesha (2022) and Diao et al. (2024), used national computable general equilibrium (CGE) models of PNG to analyze exchange rate, terms of trade, and productivity shocks on various household groups. In this paper, we extend these earlier analyses through use of a new regional CGE model that utilizes recent household survey data, including the 2023 IFPRI PNG rural household survey. The plan of this paper is as follows. The next section provides an overview of agriculture and economic growth in PNG over the last decade, highlighting the almost constant share of agriculture in GDP and very low per capita agricultural GDP growth rate. Section 3 describes the regional disaggregation of the PNG economy and the structure of household incomes and expenditure as reflected in the economywide database, the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), used in this analysis. Section 4 then presents a summary of the regional economywide model. (Details of the model are found in the annexes and in the references included in the paper.) Design of the model simulations and simulation results covering investments in agriculture and transport sectors, as well as world price shocks are discussed in Section 5. Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of the main findings and policy implications, as well as suggested areas for further work.

Year published

2025

Authors

Dorosh, Paul A.; Fang, Peixun; Pradesha, Angga

Citation

Dorosh, Paul A.; Fang, Peixun; and Pradesha, Angga. 2025. Regional implications of public investments and external shocks in Papua New Guinea: An economywide analysis. Papua New Guinea Food Policy Strengthening Working Paper 8. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/178296

Country/Region

Papua New Guinea

Keywords

Oceania; Public Investment; Shock; Agriculture; Models; Agricultural Production

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open Access

Source

Source record

Record type

Working Paper

Resource thumbnail

Brief

Implications of exchange rate overvaluation and world price shocks for PNG

2025Dorosh, Paul A.; Pradesha, Angga
Details

Implications of exchange rate overvaluation and world price shocks for PNG

The large inflow of foreign capital to fund PNG investments in natural gas pipeline and processing infrastructure resulted in a surge in inflation beginning in 2011. Costs of production of tradable goods such as coffee and palm oil rose more (in kina terms) than their output prices, reducing the profitability of these sectors. These price distortions have continued to the present day, as restrictions on access to foreign exchange (mainly through delays in the release of funds) as demand for foreign exchange exceeds supply made available to the public. This policy note reviews PNG’s exchange rate policies and uses an economy-wide simulation model1 to quantify the impacts of these distortions. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications, highlighting the effects of a possible devaluation / depreciation of the kina.

Year published

2025

Authors

Dorosh, Paul A.; Pradesha, Angga

Citation

Dorosh, Paul; and Pradesha, Angga. 2025. Implications of exchange rate overvaluation and world price shocks for PNG. Papua New Guinea Project Note 21. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/176217

Country/Region

Papua New Guinea

Keywords

Oceania; Capital; Exchange Rate; Policies; Prices; Valuation; Value Chains; Value Chain

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Brief

Blogs

Opportunities and challenges for coffee production in Papua New Guinea’s highlands
Research Post
 | 
July 03, 2024

Opportunities and challenges for coffee production in Papua New Guinea’s highlands

By Rishabh Mukerjee, Helmtrude Sikas-Iha, and Damaris Warambukia

Survey insights on production, pests, and marketing.

Events

Informing agricultural investment strategy and food policy in PNG
IFPRI at External Event

 | 

October 13, 2022, 8:30 – 12:45 pm

Informing agricultural investment strategy and food policy in PNG

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the PNG National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) have teamed up to support data-driven policy dialogue and formulation in Papua New Guinea. This workshop aims to inform key agricultural development challenges, opportunities, and investments in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Presentations will discuss results from recent data collection efforts […]

Funders

Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) through the Australia High Commission (AHC) in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

Team members

Emily Schmidt

Emily Schmidt

Senior Research Fellow, Development
Strategies and Governance

Peixun Fang

Peixun Fang

Senior Research Analyst, Foresight
and Policy Modeling

Katrina Kosec

Katrina Kosec

Senior Research Fellow, Poverty,
Gender, and Inclusion

Paul Dorosh

Paul Dorosh

Research Fellow Emeritus, Director
General's Office (DGO)

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Adam Kennedy

Program Head, Development
Strategies and Governance

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Raywin Ovah

Project Economist, National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI)

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