Since 2004 the PNG Minister for Community Development, Dame Carol Kidu, has worked with the Department
for Community Development to formulate, and begin to implement, a new strategy for community development
that acknowledges the need to fundamentally rethink relationships between local communities, non-government
organisations, corporations, provincial government and national government.
This new approach seeks to move away from the Western 'welfare' model for community development that
spilled over from the colonial period into the post-independence period, resulting in a widespread
expectation that the national government could be the great benefactor. In the PNG context, the
welfare approach became a form of 'cargo development' that created a mentality of dependence which,
in turn, undermined the traditional emphasis on reciprocity as a system of sustained co-operation
and exchange within local communities.
The new approach being developed by the Department of Community Development, under the direction of Dame Carol Kidu, is intended to rehabilitate the principle of reciprocity when it comes to meeting local needs.
