10 May 2022
The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Provincial Government and institutional Strengthening (MPGIS), Mr Stanley Dick Pirione and his team met and had a dialogue with Malaita’s government on Saturday last week in Auki.
The Deputy Premier Glen Waneta and members of Malaita Provincial Assembly and heads of divisions were part of the meeting with MPGIS.
The dialogue was to provide update on the implementation and future direction on the Community Governance and Grievance Management Project (CGGMP) under MPGIS where the two stakeholders had worked on until last year.
According to information received on the dialogue, the meeting was organised to provide an update on the project activities and look at ways forward for the future of the project with the provincial government in supporting local communities.
The dialogue was also to discuss project priorities and donor funding support, and discuss how to resolve some of the resource management issues encountered by the provincial project team on CGGMP on the ground.
The CGGMP programme through which Community Liaison Officers (CLOs) was once established had greatly benefited communities in Malaita province particularly on conflict solving, bylaws and other governance issues.
The Provincial Coordinator of CGGMP in Auki, Mr Emmanuel Maesua said that the dialogue workshop was also for MPGIS to provide an update on the new World Bank/SIG partnership Integrate, Economic Development and Climate Resilience Program (IEDCR).
He said under IEDCR in which discussion is now between MPGIS and various provincial governments, it will see integration between the CGGMP, Rural Development Program (RDP) and the Crisp program and be administered under the planning division of the province together with the PCDF program.
Mr. Maesua said the new program will no longer be on governance alone, but infrastructure and climate resilience that basically looks more on economic development.
He said in place of CLO, as once known under CGGMP, there will be Ward Support Officers (WSOs) under the IEDCR, and MPGIS through his office will soon recruit officers to pilot the new program in the province.
Mr.Maesua said that in summary the dialogue was conducted to seek feedbacks from MPG on the existence of the CGGMP and the new IEDCR program that will soon be introduced.
Source. Island Sun newspaper.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
