Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one of the world's least “developed” countries. A third of its three million people have only emerged from the neolithic age over the past 40 years. The people are divided by mountain ranges reaching 4,700m, torrential rivers, forests, ravines, seas, malarial swamps and language — more than 700 are spoken. But in the five years since independence from Australia, the government has launched an ambitious Improvement Plan, under which western science and technology are being introduced enthusiastically. All projects are funded by the National Public Expenditure Plan, which absorbs 21% of all spending. The main national aims are equal distribution of development among a population that is 85% rural and largely dependent on subsistence farming and a reduction in the number of western expatriates on whom development still largely depends. Both aims are meeting with mixed results, as Tony Ades reports
