Administrator Samantha Power at a Press Gaggle in Papua New Guinea

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Good afternoon, everybody. It is a real pleasure to be gathered here with our colleagues from the region, with officials from the Papua New Guinean government and from Bougainville. 

I want to extend my thanks to Prime Minister Marape and his entire government for the welcome that they have shown me and my delegation from USAID, from the United States. I also especially want to thank the people of Papua New Guinea, who I've had the chance to interact with over the last couple of days, for incredible hospitality, and really intense discussions about what more USAID can do here in Papua New Guinea as we deepen our partnership with the people of this country.

I'm here at Jacksons International Airport, where relief supplies will be airlifted to evacuation camps in Bougainville. These pallets, which contain life-saving materials for very vulnerable people will be loaded very soon, today, onto a C-130 that has just landed here at this airport. 

Since Mount Bagana’s eruption last month, as you all know, ash is still severely contaminating the region's food and water supplies. In just the past month, more than 10,000 people have been affected, including nearly 4,000 people who have been displaced from their homes. Most of the displaced are now in two evacuation centers in the Torokina and Wakunai districts, which have been undersupplied and underserved. 

The United States is committed to helping reach those vulnerable people in their hour of need. Last week, I announced that USAID would invest $200,000 in critical supplies. Some of those supplies are here as we speak. We are working with our partner on the ground, the International Organization for Migration [IOM], and USAID’s team, plus IOM, will be helping get these supplies and others before them to those vulnerable communities. I am announcing on this visit an additional $300,000 worth of supplies, which will bring our investment to about 1.8 million kina.

This new funding will provide support for food assistance for logistics, and protection support for women and children, who in every emergency pay the biggest price and are the most vulnerable, particularly when displaced. 

The U.S. remains really grateful for all of the work done by our partner governments, Australia and New Zealand – the C-130 provided by those countries, so many supplies that had been pre-positioned by our allies in the region, being taken to Buka. And then the United States using its unique capability to move those supplies via Osprey, which can reach harder to reach areas in the area. It is a perfect tag team effort and it is just what the partnership between Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the people of Papua New Guinea – the kinds of benefits that it can yield going forward.

I'm incredibly grateful for this partnership. We are really interested in hearing from our teams on the ground, and from the authorities from Bougainville, what more we can do. But I would also note that one of the other things that I announced yesterday is an investment of more than $3 million dollars in Papua New Guinea’s own disaster response capabilities. Ultimately, success will be achieved between us when Papua New Guinea has the national capacity to respond to the variety of disasters that the country is vulnerable to. 

So we thank the Bougainville authorities for being here, for their leadership on the ground. We take our cue from them, and from the communities in which we work, to know just precisely where supplies need to be delivered, and what those supplies should contain, and how long this response needs to continue forward. 

Thank you so much, and I look forward to taking your questions.

QUESTION: Ms. Power, I'd like to ask about Bougainville is at the stage where it's aiming to get independence from Papua New Guinea. And with the establishment of a USAID office here in Papua New Guinea, where is the support – or how will the office look towards supporting Bougainville’s plans to be independent?  

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you so much. We're really excited now to be opening this office in Papua New Guinea, it will mean an expansion of our presence on the ground. And with that expanded presence, I hope the people of Papua New Guinea will see much more of USAID, well and apart from here in the capital area. 

So that will mean traveling and hiring from a vast variety of places. Obviously, it's impossible to fully capture the diversity of this historically diverse country in the composition of our staff. But we really aim to represent a wide array of communities as we build out our presence here. And so working in Bougainville, just as we are in other places, not only to respond when national emergencies arise, and not only to enhance the community's own preparedness to respond to those emergencies, but really, fundamentally, to invest in the development, the economic development of communities across Papua New Guinea, including Bougainville. So, we work very closely, of course, with the national government, but our cue as to how to invest in solar mini grids, or in women's empowerment, or in combating gender-based violence, or in spurring job growth for young people, or in strengthening the health sector. Our cues come from the local communities in which we are working. And that will be true in Bougainville just as it is going to be true in all the communities that we reach here in Papua New Guinea. 

QUESTION: Sustainable electricity is a major challenge here in the city. I’m sure you visited Morata Settlement today. What was the feedback you got from the community?

ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you so much. We have actually worked with the same partners represented here today, as well as Japan and the Papua New Guinea authorities to put forward an energy and electricity reform agenda that is beginning to pay dividends. Obviously it's a very, very challenging sector.

Three quarters of the population of Papua New Guinea lack access to reliable electricity. That is something that sets back development profoundly.

You know, schools that cannot be lit, health clinics that cannot sustain electricity, lights on the streets that could deter crime but that don't exist or that you can't get reliable access to power. 

So this initiative, this program on electrification, collectively has already brought reliable electricity to about 800,000 individuals – about 155,000 households. And we are each – Australia, New Zealand, Japan, we, Papua New Guinea – working toward the government's goal of 70 percent of the population having access to reliable electricity by 2030. 

What I heard yesterday was the beginnings of the impact that this kind of initiative can have. I met with a small shop owner who said that in years past, the blackouts had made it almost impossible to run his small business because perishable food items, when the power goes out, you lose refrigeration, and often the goods that he had hoped to sell go bad. Now, he has a meter in his home, the pirating of electricity in the area has been dramatically reduced through an amnesty program, and he described far fewer blackouts than he had experienced in years past. 

So I think this is only one person, one small shop owner. If I traveled, even just throughout the capital, nevermind through rural areas, I would hear many, many stories of people's frustrations in not being able to count on the electricity that they have, or not having electricity at all. 

We do think that solar prices coming down globally is going to make a huge difference here. And one of the things that I announced yesterday is a new investment where USAID invests $1.4 [$1.2] million, and a company based in the Philippines comes and builds a solar mini grid. We think this is just one example of what all of us can be doing together to attract the private sector to be part of this electrification planning process. 

So we are working energetically with our colleagues from Australia, from New Zealand, from Japan, and again, above all, with the government here to make sure that the reforms in the energy sector, in the electricity sector are proceeding quickly enough, where when we go to the private sector, whether here or in our countries, we can present a convincing argument for coming to Papua New Guinea. So reform and investment must go hand in hand and those were the discussions I had yesterday with the Prime Minister. Thank you.