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THE Community Affairs and National Content Conference Expo 2024 brings together resource industry experts, landowners, landowner companies and the business community to connect and discuss issues affecting and impacting communities in Papua New Guinea.

Together with daily scheduled meetings, booths were also set up by participating stakeholders to connect and provide information on their business and products.

One such booth displaying mostly solar lights was the USAID PNG Electrification Partership.

USAID has a five-year program, the USAID-PNG Electrification Partnership (PEP) Activity.

The project works in partnership with PNG Power and other stakeholders to ensure 70 percent of PNG households are connected to electricity by 2030.

Trupla Sola booth set up at CANCONEX.
Kavaea Evara, the Agriculture and Business Specialist answers queries from visitors and explains the Trupla Sola concept. [[Photo//Sincha Dimara, Inside PNG]]


The USAID is a result of 2018 APEC in which the US Government pledged to support PNG achieve its goal.

The project’s technical assistance supports 26 mini grids including 19 with co-funding.

USAID also partners with other major companies such as SANTOS Foundation, local MPs and District Development Authorities to conduct site assessments and pre-feasibility studies, engineering and design, financial modeling and advice among others.

The program is also providing opportunities for resource and energy companies to market their products especially in rural areas where hospitals, health centres and schools need electricity.

Under the Trupla Sola program, USAID is helping communities and MSME groups to buy and market quality-certified solar products.

US Aid’s participation at CANCONEX 2024 is a way of connecting with stakeholders both in the government and private sector to roll out the USAID-PEP program.

The annual event is the flagship of the PNG Chamber of Resources and Energy (PNG CORE). The first CANCONEX event was hosted by the University of Technology in Lae, Morobe Province in 2023.

CANCONEX 2024 was hosted by the University of Papua New Guinea from the 1st to 3rd July 2024.

President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Ishmael Toroama speaking during CANCONEX about Panguna Mine Issues.
President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Ishmael Toroama speaking during CANCONEX. [[Photo: PNG Media]]
Old Trucks at the Panguna Mine.
Panguna Mine. [[Photo//Llane Munau]]
Panguna Mine. [[Photo//Llane Munau]]

President of the Papua New Guinea Chamber of Resources and Energy or PNG CORE, Anthony Smare says the Community Affairs and National Content Conference and Expo or CANCONEX is a safe space for uncomfortable courageous conversations.

Smare made the comment during the conclusion of the 2024 National Community Affairs & National Content Conference & Expo. CANCONEX, the conference and Expo started on the 1st and ended on the 3rd of July, and was hosted by the University of Papua New Guinea.

There were presentations by companies and stakeholders in the Mining, Petroleum and Energy sectors, and afterwards panel discussions, creating interaction between Resource Landowners, activists and Major Companies in the extractive and Energy industries.

With the focus on Community Affairs and Local Content, discussions on challenges and innovations in improving and addressing issues of national interest, that affect resource landowners and companies alike, were presented to over a thousand attendees over the three days.

One of the highlights of the CANCONEX was a continuation of last years inaugural CANCONEX in Lae, which featured the Issues of Bougainville; this years edition also welcomed the resource landowners from Bougainville and key partners which included the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) and the Panguna Land Owners.

Sensitive discussions on the legacy issues of the Panguna mine and the progress of reopening the mine took center stage, with the audience very much in tune.

The President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (AROB), Ishmael Toroama, was present, he gave a speech and later the president was part of a panel discussion with BCL, and representatives of the Landowners, which included Theonila Roka Matbob, member for the Ioro Constituency in Central Bougainville, which is part of the Panguna mine area.

President of the PNG CORE, Anthony Smare on stage during CANCONEX 2024

President of PNG CORE, Anthony Smare was invested in the conversations and facilitated the panel discussion, on Bougainville issues, he stressed during the closing of CANCONEX that the discussions were informative and very diverse.

“We need safe spaces for uncomfortable courageous conversations, we saw this in the session, the ABG President was here and Bougainville Copper Limited was here, BCL was not welcome back to Bougainville for 20 years, But I was surprised to hear them say that, mining was essential to grow their economy, as the President had said.

“But they were doing it in a way that they knew they had legacy issues and through processes such as remediation in which the people and the ABG are involved in, and that illustrates the importance of having safe spaces where extremely diverse views can be heard where people don’t take it personally but they realize its important to build a future where people feel included and they own that future,” Smare added.

With the convergence of resource owners and companies together not all views are agreed to, but like the President of PNG CORE alluded to in his closing remarks, the convention attendees are always expected to keep an open mind when observing discussions.

“I salute the companies that support this and that sponsor this, because they know that the people that are most uncomfortable with these conversations are the companies themselves, when they hear being mentioned.

“CANCONEX is successful because of what we want people to commit to when they come in, which is to open your mind to opinions which you don’t agree with, with people you don’t necessarily agree with or that you think you have nothing in common with, someone you have never met before, and this event only works because of the commitment the attendees make, you attend all the sessions and you talk to the interns the CEOs, Resource Landowners and community activists you have a whole spectrum that come here,” Smare added.

Ramu NiCo’s Coastal Pipeline Landowners Women’s Association (CPL WA) from the Rai Coast District in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea will be participating in the inaugural Community Affairs and National Content Conference and Expo (CANCONEX) in Lae, Morobe Province as one of the successful association along the projects corridor area.

The CPL WA is a successful women’s landowner group and comprises of three zones that are Bugati, Marika and Siroi.

It has 3000 active registered members who successfully ventured into financially viable projects and businesses.

These have come to fruition from the portion of royalties allocated to the women’s group.

The portion, in most cases, is used as capital to acquire loans from the People’s Micro Bank branch in Madang to buy trucks and dinghies, which are being used as public motor vehicles (PMVs) to serve the local people living within the mining tenement area, venture into other small to medium enterprises (SMEs).

The expo is set to be held at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (PNGUoT) in Lae, Morobe Province from the 28th to the 30th of August; Ramu NiCo is also a gold sponsor for the hosting of the event.

Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) Limited will attend and participate in the first-ever CANCONEX with the theme of “Promoting National Participation for Sustainable Communities.”

With the encouragement of the President of the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum, Anthony Smare, the conference is an avenue for participants to share their experiences and learn from each other, make new connections, seek opportunities and experience.

Ramu NiCo saw fit that it features one of the best performing and successful landowner groups from the four impact communities to represent their fellow landowner groups.

The successful Women Association from the Ramu NiCo Project in Madang Province is one of the fruitful associations that Ramu NiCo has seen being an active association apart from all the associations in the project’s corridor. Thus, Ramu NiCo thinks highly of this successful women group and other landowner groups coming from afar to attend the CANCONEX.

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