That large-scale capital drives inequality in states like Papua New Guinea is clear enough; how it does so is less clear. This edited collection presents studies of the local contexts of capital-intensive projects in the mining, oil and gas, and agro-industry sectors in rural and semi-rural parts of Papua New Guinea; it asks what is involved when large-scale capital and its agents begin to become significant nodes in hitherto more local social networks. Its contributors describe the processes initiated by the (planned) presence of extractive industries that tend to reinforce already existing inequalities, or to create and socially entrench novel inequalities. The studies largely focus on the beginnings of such transformations, when hopes for social improvement are highest and economic inequalities still incipient. They show how those hopes, and the encompassing socio-political transformations characteristic of this phase, act to produce far-reaching impacts on ways of life, setting precedents for and embedding the social distribution of gains and losses. The chapters address a range of settings: the PNG Liquid Natural Gas pipeline; newly established eucalyptus and oil palm plantations; a planned copper-gold mine; and one in which rumours of development diffuse through a rural social network as yet unaffected by any actual or planned capital investments. The analyses all demonstrate that questions around land, leadership and information are central to the current and future social profile of local inequality in all its facets.

Papua New Guinea's economic growth has outpaced the majority of economies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific since 2007. Its development challenges, however, remain daunting, and it lags behind other countries in the region in terms of per capita income and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. This raises the question of how the country can make its economic growth high, sustained, inclusive, and broad-based to more effectively improve its population's welfare. This report identifies the critical constraints to these objectives and discusses policy options to help overcome such constraints.

Papua New Guinea is the first book to explore the economic development of this socially complex, rapidly changing nation. Subjects discussed include: * rapid economic growth and political conflict * civil war on the island of Bougainville * population growth and urbanisation * mining: gold, copper and environmental conflicts * uneven development and social divisions.

The Country Gender Assessment of Agriculture and the Rural Sector report provides a gender perspective of the agricultural and rural sector of Papua New Guinea. The analysis provides an overview of the gender-based gaps and inequalities in access to and control over critical productive resources and opportunities. The methods used involved a two-tier approach where there was the review of literature related to women’s engagement in agriculture and the rural sector as well as, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with selected groups. The findings recognizes that agriculture is key for the country’s economy. However, there remains to be persisting challenges in creating an enabling environment for enhancing women’s participation in food value chains. Additionally, the disparities are obvious in access to and control over key agricultural resources. The rural women even though are major contributors to the economy, their rights are not properly recognized hence, are excluded systematically from access to decision-making. It is thereby concluded that the lack of influential gender sensitive leadership and coordination of the agricultural sector impede the empowerment of rural women and girls in the country. The recommendation include a gender and workplace policy developed for the agricultural sector. Importantly, this publication is a tool for FAO, the Government of Papua New Guinea and other development partners to mainstream gender into programming towards gender equality and the empowerment of rural women in Papua New Guinea.

Strathern's illuminating study of the inequalities amongst the Highland societies of Papua New Guinea is now reissued with a new preface. The five papers in this volume seek to set these inequalities into a context of long-term and recent social changes that aim to develop schemes of analysis which will permit discussion of the societies over extended periods of time.