The Asian Development Bank and Australia are supporting a USD24 million project to improve access to credit and financial services among rural communities in Papua New Guinea.
The project is expected to boost economic growth and generate jobs in some of the Pacific country’s poorest and most remote communities.
“This project will help rural areas move from a subsistence to a modern cash-based economy and in the process it will increase incomes and reduce poverty by stimulating informal business activity,” Robert Wihtol, head of ADB’s Pacific Department, explained in a news release.
The project aims to boost the capacity of lenders to provide a wider variety of financial services and solutions to micro and small-size enterprises in rural communities, particularly those run by women. This project will build on the lessons from ADB’s Microfinance and Employment project, an eight-year initiative in Papua New Guinea that began in 2002 and is also supported by Australia.
