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.
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.