Strategies To Address Challenges In Customary Land Administration, Governance And Dispute Resolution In Papua New Guinea

Customary land is increasingly recognised as an important governance issue in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
The aim of this paper is to identify challenges associated with land administration, land governance and land
dispute resolution in PNG as perceived by stakeholders; and to find potential strategies for promoting bankable
customary land titles. From the 2019 National Land Summit, a need for a new approach that is theoretically
better anchored in the current debate on bankable customary land leases has been identified. This paper builds
on existing customary land reform issues that remain from the implementation of National Land Development
Program (NLDP) Phase I in the areas of customary land administration, land governance and land dispute
resolution in PNG. The review of global experiences and perspective in this paper reinforce the fact that
customary land reform is highly complex that a more long-term strategy is appropriate for customary land
reforms. Customary land reform is challenging, it requires continuous information sharing with key stakeholders
for the reform to work