Port Moresby – IOM, supported by the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, continues to work with local authorities to build and sustain peace in conflict affected communities in Hela and Southern Highlands provinces. 

The project, ‘Preventing Climate-Induced Conflicts Through Empowered Women Leadership,’ facilitates community peace for development planning in the Pira and Mapata (Southern Highlands) and the Tenggo, Idawi, and Papeli communities (Hela), with a focus on strengthening the capacity of women and youth to contribute to peacebuilding, conflict mitigation, and disaster risk reduction.

The community planning process gathered inputs from all socio-economic groups, including women and persons with special needs. These groups informed plenary discussions looking at how peace and development challenges have affected members of the community. These issues include weak social cohesion, tribal conflict, and conflict over natural resources. Informed by IOM’s inclusive community peace for development planning process, these communities identified initiatives to address these challenges and collaborated to develop Community Peace for Development Plans (CPDPs).

IOM and local authorities at provincial, district and local level, worked closely with these communities to action CPDPs promoting social cohesion and community peace.

The advisor for the Southern Highlands Provincial Community Development Office, Anna Emeck highlighted, “I am happy to receive these community plans. This is what we really want to do applying the bottom-up planning approach, but we lack the capacity to do it and appreciate the financial and technical support from the UN Peacebuilding Fund and IOM.”

“Thank you for complementing the efforts of the government very meaningfully through supporting peacebuilding efforts in the province,” she added.

Michael Mambu, Southern Highlands’s Rural Health Services Coordinator highlighted that he will go through the plans and communicate to his administration about the identified basic services needs for the local communities. 

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For further information, please contact at IOM Port Moresby, Peter Murorera, Tel: +675 4 3213655 Email: pmurorera@iom.int or Mohamud Omer, Tel: +675 321 36 55, Email: moomer@iom.int