Established in 2000, the Incentive Fund was a concept borne out of the 1997 Development Cooperation Treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea, with a mutual desire to make the aid program even more effective.
The Incentive Fund set out to achieve this by providing grants to high performing organisations and strong communities.
Between 2000 and 2008 the fund provided $100 million to 39 projects across 15 provinces which included town markets, a new bridge, feeder roads, nurses' accommodation, school classrooms and student dormitories, and classrooms and teachers' houses.
Now in its third phase, the Incentive Fund has accumulated an impressive record of achievements over more than a decade, and it continues to make a major contribution to the joint Australia-PNG development priority areas of health and education.
Thirteen Incentive Fund agreements valued at $40 million were approved in 2011 across seven provinces. This year a large hydro-electric power system is being built at a major provincial hospital to help ensure power outages no longer put at risk more than 60,000 outpatients a year.
In the education sector, classrooms, teachers' houses, workshops, computer laboratories and water systems are all under construction and expected to be completed this year across four provinces.
The Incentive Fund will provide around 650 dormitory beds for female secondary students and 500 beds for male students this year. A large number of other facilities such as administration blocks, study rooms, toilet blocks, specialists teaching centres, kitchens, dining halls and laundries are also being built.
In 2012, the fund will also see the opening of new facilities at the PNG Maritime College in Madang. Madang Health Services will receive a boost with nine new rural health centres to be built and an upgrade to the main district health centre in the remote area of Josephstal. The Vanimo General Hospital will be opening its refurbished child health and family planning centre, administration block and staff accommodation.