In its commitment to improve the lives of the rural population through agricultural activities such as cocoa, coconut, spice and small livestock, the PNG Agriculture Commercialization and Diversification Project Cocoa Component has facilitated a four-day Management and Information System (MIS) and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) to its six partnerships in East New Britain province.

This training aims to equip PACD Extension Officers (EO) especially with the knowledge and skills to familiarized themselves with the MIS and Kobo Toolbox software to gather, analyze and present farmer data.

The training is delivered with the collaboration of PACD MIS Developer and Consultant Phratip Manuel and Mihaela Balan International M&E Adviser assisted by the PACD Project Coordination Unit (PCU) and Project Management Unit (PMU) M&E team.

The training took place at the Kokopo Beach Bungalow conference room last week beginning Monday 27th of January and ended Thursday 30th of January 2025. The MIS consultant Manuel Phratip said with a focus on effective M&E of the project, effective data collection targeting immediate beneficiaries is paramount as the project initiatives aim to increase cocoa production and improve livelihoods of PNG’s rural communities.

He said the PACD Cocoa has provided tablets to the partnership for the Extension Officers to use for data collection in the field. The tablets host the Kobo Toolbox software which forms part of the PACD MIS which is the link to the project’s M&E and reporting requirement covering both field implementation progress matched against target budget outcomes.

“The MIS will capture the real time implementation and progress from the respective partners in the field, this is a leap away from the papers which is subjected to double handling and often cumbersome, “he said.

Mr Manuel further stated that the ENB partnerships have backlog on paper and after the training they will again do data entries into the tablets. The PACD project is using this system to monitor data online now using electronic means. The participants went to the field to have a hands- on during the final day of the training. The team visited PACD farmers under the PNG Growers Association small livestock farmer in Rakunai ward Gazelle district and capture data into the tablets.

PACD Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist Clement Kunandi Victor said these similar training will be rolled out in other project provinces as well in AROB, New Ireland, West New Britain, Madang and Morobe.

Mr Kunandi thanked the participants for the turn out commenting that now the Extension Officers are up skilled and on the new digitized, electronic approach using the MIS system and Kobo Toolbox application, which is more convenient, effective, quicker and less expensive.

“We are privileged and happy to get this important training. I learned a lot of things especially collecting data using the software in the tablet and makes my work easy and very helpful,” said a delighted Extension Office Peter Robert Wanji.

Another Extension Officer Peter Gobaiamun said they have 500 farmers altogether along the New Britain South Coast the rural areas of Pomio District and Kandrian.

They have been collecting farmer data manually however with this training and the tablet issue by the PACD PMU Cocoa it is off great help, and this will lower cost too.

New Britain South Coast is one of the farmer groups under the Agmark Limited lead partner a partnership with PACD PPMU Cocoa programme.