Visit to ABM of the PNG Church Partnership Program

February 27, 2015

ABM is proud this week to be hosting (along with Uniting World) meetings in Sydney of the Papua New Guinea Church Partnership Program (CPP). This is a now ten-year-old initiative of seven “mainline” Australian and Papua New Guinean churches, together with the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments, to partner together to improve health, education and community development outcomes for people in PNG.

Program Coordinators from all seven PNG Churches (including Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, United, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist and Salvation Army) are in Sydney this week reviewing the program and planning for the future. They have been joined by their Australian church agency counterparts, including ABM’s Meagan Morrison (now Mrs Meagan Schwarz), and by the Moderator of the United Church of Papua New Guinea, Rev’d Bernard Siai, and Ambassador Lucy Bogari (an Anglican from Oro Province) who is the Chair of the CPP Governing Council for a week of meetings.

Some of the achievements of the program that the group have been reflecting on have been improvements in the way PNG Church Education and Health departments are managed and governed, a greater focus on targeting programs to areas of greatest need, increasingly improved development outcomes for women as well as men. Other key achievements of the program have been the publication by PNG church leaders of a Theology of Development to guide churches in their development work, a much greater recognition by PNG churches of the need to work and engage with each other, and greater Church engagement in dialogue with the Papua New Guinea government over important matters affecting Papua New Guinean people, such as health, education, government accountability etc.

The program is currently developing a comprehensive Gender Policy to guide its work, and is rolling out Child Protection training within the various churches, among a host of other activities.

ABM wishes the Church Partnership Program well, and we pray that Australian government funding of this program will continue into the future, so that current successes can be built on further.

 

	Coordinators of the seven PNG Churches meeting with their Australian Church NGO counterparts. © ABM/Vivienne For 2015