Securing Papua New Guinea’s Future

Tom Abke

The security challenges facing Papua New Guinea (PNG) have evolved in recent decades, according to Elias Wohengu, PNG’s foreign affairs secretary. Thirty years ago, the threat of climate change to national security didn’t occur to him, Wohengu said at a panel discussion called “Security and PNG’s National Interest.” But today it has become self-evident.

Confronting emerging and conventional threats will require new levels of cooperation and support. “We’ve sought for and we’ve got help from Australia. We’ve sought for and we’ve got help from New Zealand. And we’ve sought and got help from the U.S. as well,” Wohengu said at the event, held in the nation’s capital, Port Moresby, in August 2023 and co-hosted by the University of Papua New Guinea and Australia’s Lowy Institute. “So these defense cooperation or security arrangements do not only speak to military arrangements, as we traditionally think the concept is. It will include nontraditional security considerations as well.”

Wohengu and other speakers stressed the importance of security cooperation with the U.S. and its Allies and Partners. The event also featured a talk by Ivan Pomaleu, PNG’s chief secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and National Executive Council.

PNG is the world’s third-largest island country with a total area of 462,840 square kilometers. It is one of the most geographically diverse countries, with coral reefs, beaches, rainforests, mountains, volcanoes and rivers. PNG is also one of the most linguistically diverse, with 839 known languages spoken by its estimated population of nearly 12 million.

“Most of us came from villages,” explained Dr. Elizabeth Kopel, senior research fellow and program leader of the Informal Economy Research Program at PNG’s National Research Institute. About 85% “of our people live in rural areas of the land. Their only source of income is from what they can produce themselves.”

National security discussions must consider citizens’ living conditions, Kopel said at the Port Moresby event. PNG livelihoods are impacted by climate change and natural disasters that affect food production, she said, as well as availability of clean drinking water, sustainable housing and affordable education.

Wohengu agreed, saying that the security issues facing PNG are relevant largely because of their effect on citizens’ economic well-being — a connection that must factor into security arrangements with partners such as Australia and the United States.

The Role of the U.S. Defense Cooperation Agreement

PNG Defence Minister Win Bakri Daki and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) in May 2023 in Port Moresby that PNG Prime Minister James Marape called “important for the continued partnership of Papua New Guinea and the United States,” according to Radio New Zealand (RNZ). “It’s mutually beneficial; it secures our national interests.” 

Wohengu, who led the PNG team that formulated the DCA with its U.S. counterparts, said it’s not a stand-alone agreement. “It’s an agreement with which we had infrastructure and other economic issues in mind. It is not solely military.”

A changing security environment created the need for agreements such as the DCA to supplant older ones such as the status of forces agreements PNG has maintained with countries including Australia, France and the U.S., Wohengu said. “As the platform of security and security issues has changed and evolved as we have new emerging issues, including pandemics, to confront us, our security arrangements also equally change as well,” he said. Theft of fisheries and other resources from the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), along with other illegal activities conducted in PNG’s waters, has elevated the need for enhanced defense cooperation.

PNG and U.S. officials also signed a shiprider agreement in May 2023. The bilateral agreements together allow PNG and U.S. personnel to work on each other’s coast guard and naval vessels to counter illegal fishing, human and drug trafficking, and arms smuggling.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing threatens the sustainability of PNG’s marine resources, the livelihoods of coastal communities and maritime domain security, according to the PNG National Fisheries Authority.

The country has one of the largest and richest EEZs in the world, with an area of about 2.4 million square kilometers and abundant fish stocks, especially tuna. The fisheries sector accounts for about 10% of the nation’s gross domestic product and provides employment and income for more than 200,000 people.

National leaders have highlighted another growing security concern: reports of drugs trafficked by sea into PNG and the threat of the country being used as a point of transshipment.

There are “a lot of illegal shipping engagements in the waters of Papua New Guinea; unregulated, unmonitored transactions take place, including drug trafficking,” Marape said, according to RNZ. “This new shiprider agreement now gives Papua New Guinea’s shipping authority, the Defence Force and Navy full knowledge of what is happening in waters, something PNG has not had since [gaining independence in] 1975.”

Wohengu said the agreement will help PNG maintain its sovereignty by protecting its EEZ. “Under the shiprider arrangement, if the vessel is to be captained by a PNG Defence Force Navy personnel, we will fly the PNG flag on it, and we will conduct enforcement according to our laws.”

Broadening the DCA’s Scope

The DCA will facilitate bilateral and multilateral exercises and engagements in support of regional capacity-building, according to the U.S. State Department. It will also enable the U.S. to be more responsive in emergencies, such as those involving humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

“And what are some of the things that make the DCA different,” Wohengu said, “I want to link DCA to economic development, economic assistance.”

Wohengu said he plans for PNG agricultural produce, including coffee and vegetables, to be shipped regularly to U.S. military bases in the Indo-Pacific under the deal. “So, in the morning, they can wake up and have a bowl of our coffee.”

Expanding Ties with Australia

PNG and Australia are also enhancing security ties. Under an agreement signed in December 2023, the nations will formalize their extensive current and planned defense cooperation, and work together to defend independence and sovereignty and build resilience, with a focus on how nontraditional security challenges, such as climate change, cybersecurity and economic elements of statecraft, affect their shared strategic environment.

The countries’ defense cooperation is inseparable from their proximity and shared history. Australia’s northernmost jurisdiction, Saibai Island, is less than 4 kilometers from the PNG mainland. Australia administered PNG for nearly 60 years, beginning during World War I and ending with the establishment of PNG’s sovereignty in 1975.

Under the PNG-Australia Defence Cooperation Program, Australian Defence Force (ADF) troops train and exercise with their PNG counterparts through the annual Olgeta series, which includes Air Force, Army, Navy and civilian engagements. Through the program, Australia is making long-term investments in PNG’s personnel, equipment and infrastructure.

During exercise Pukpuk in August 2023, ADF and PNG troops collaborated with military personnel from the United Kingdom and other partner nations including New Zealand and the U.S. to build classrooms and living quarters at PNG’s Lombrum Naval Base, which is operated by the PNG Defence Force’s Maritime Operations Element on Manus Island. Pukpuk, which started as a joint exercise decades ago, also included road and drainage system repairs on the island.

“The exercise continues to grow in breadth and engagement and across multiple countries as well. That is positive. It’s a great exercise,” Col. Travis Gordon, head of the ADF staff in Port Moresby, told the PNG Post-Courier newspaper.

Following the refurbishment, Lombrum will harbor a fleet of Guardian-class patrol boats donated to PNG by the Australian government.

Cooperating to Meet Internal Security Challenges

PNG’s security threats also come from within, said Mihai Sora, a research fellow in the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program and project director of its Australia-PNG Network. Sora is a former Australian diplomat and one of the Port Moresby event’s organizers.

A government initiative seeks to increase the ratio of police to civilians to strengthen public safety, Pomaleu, of PNG’s National Executive Council, said at the event. “The key targets are 1,000 personnel per year for the next five, six years until we have a better ratio of law enforcement officials to the population.”

PNG authorities work with international partners to enhance policing capabilities and promote the rule of law and an orderly society, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. These include the PNG-Australia Policing Partnership (PNG-APP) and the Justice Services and Stability for Development (JSS4D) Program.

The PNG-APP supports the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary through advisors, mentoring and training of emerging leaders by the Australian Federal Police. The partnership aims to enhance the constabulary’s capacity to deliver effective and accountable services, especially in the areas of family and sexual violence, community policing, and transnational crime.

JSS4D is an initiative of Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. that provides technical assistance and funding to PNG’s legal and justice sector. The program supports implementation of the PNG Law and Justice Sector National Strategy 2018-2025, which focuses on enhancing access to justice, strengthening law and order, and promoting good governance.

The U.S. also will contribute $10 million to PNG to implement the 10-year Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, bringing the total projected expenditure to $30 million over three years, according to the U.S. State Department. The strategy, launched by PNG and the U.S. in 2022, aims to strengthen community capacity to prevent, reduce and respond to violence, particularly gender-based violence; to support sustainable and equitable economic growth; and to improve justice systems and security forces.

“I think the current challenge is to build numbers, to adequately equip, to ensure that data sharing and intelligence gathering is good enough and is able to pass through those who are going to address long-term issues,” Pomaleu said. “But we’re going to have to balance that with the constitutional considerations on freedoms and rights of individuals.”

Mitigating Climate Change Impacts

Climate security is an important component of PNG’s emerging agreements in the region. Climate change may lead to competition and conflict over resources such as water or terrain features and induce migration. It can also directly affect the operational capability of U.S., Ally and Partner military installations or other locations, which have national security implications. Wohengu and Kopel emphasized climate change impacts as a national security concern, particularly where housing and food production are under threat. “Our brothers and sisters in the villages, the reality of their life is different,” Kopel said, adding that introducing climate-resilient crops and promoting construction of sustainable shelters “can provide an enabling environment for the great majority of people.”

For example, landslides and soil erosion exacerbated by climate change have plagued Mul-Baiyer, an agricultural district near the city of Mount Hagen, endangering food security and livelihoods. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Climate Ready program is working with the PNG Nikki Association to fund bamboo planting as a countermeasure. The fast-growing plant can function as “a first line of defense from river flooding and landslides because bamboo anchors the soil with its spreading root system,” according to USAID.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Climate Change Impacts (CCI) Program, led by the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM), works to enhance regional climate security by building capacity so Allies and Partners remain resilient to the impacts of climate change and disasters. International and regional frameworks, including the Boe Declaration Action Plan and 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, guide the work CCI does as it strives to advance regional cooperation and collaboration. CCI uses science-based data to help Allies and Partners understand the complex and multifaceted effects that climate change will have on the regional security landscape and to inform decision-making to effectively address climate change and disasters. 

On signing the DCA, the U.S. also pledged $12.5 million through USAID to help PNG develop the resources and systems needed to make communities more climate resilient. “USAID plans to increase PNG’s access to renewable energy and climate resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene systems, support nature-based solutions, and protect the country’s biodiversity,” according to the U.S. State Department.