PNG Incentive Fund Phase 5

The Incentive Fund (IF) first began in 2000 with the broad goal of “encouraging PNG organisations to be more effective, build their capacity and ultimately contribute to the economic development and advancement of Papua New Guinea.” IF is Australia’s longest standing development program in PNG and is the only component of the Australian development program written into the bilateral treaty between Australia and PNG, the 1999 Development Cooperation Treaty.

Since inception, IF has invested around AUD293 million and supported more than 80 grants to more than 50 organisations – with a large focus on improving health and education facilities and the quality of services they provide. IF has delivered high impact, low-cost projects in most of PNG’s 22 provinces, resulting in tangible development outcomes aligned to PNG’s Medium Term Development Plan III (2018-2022). Annex 2 provides a high-level summary of achievements and impacts from IF4.

Incentive Fund Phase 4 is a competitive, small grants program providing grants of between AUD350,000 and AUD3.5 million to community and government organisations across PNG. The purpose of the program is to fund high performing organisations to support improved service delivery and/or economic development. Two governance committees, the Organisational Management Group and the Strategic Management Group (SMG) oversee the allocation of grants, with DFAT and our PNG Government partner, the Department of National Planning and Monitoring, represented on both groups. The current phase has focussed on infrastructure investments, largely in the health and education sectors, with targeted investments in markets and COVID-19 response grants.