By Philip Wen
PORT MORESBY, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Barely a five-minute drive from the $50 million conference venue for the just-concluded Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea's capital, a makeshift squatter settlement is tucked away from visiting world leaders.
The Wanigela settlement in Port Moresby looks out directly over APEC Haus, but might as well be a world away.
With the South Pacific nation's rainy season looming, Wanigela's thousands of residents are packed together in overcrowded and dilapidated dwellings with no sanitation and unreliable electricity supplies.
For all the hope and promise the APEC summit would put PNG on the world stage – and attract investment that will translate into jobs and infrastructure – many are questioning how such an international event will benefit their everyday lives.
"The government says APEC is going to improve our lives, but I don’t know, because our politics is not trustworthy," said Bradley Kalau, 31, who has been unemployed for two years. "We find it very difficult because of a lack of education. It’s hard to find jobs and put bread and butter on the table."
Close to half of Moresby's population of around 310,000 live in informal or squatter settlements, according to a 2015 study by the Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility.
The impoverished communities suffer from chronic unemployment and are prone to crime and gang violence, laying bare the socio-economic problems that will persist long after the APEC leaders depart.
Kalau lives in a small wooden stilt-house perched on the rocky shores of Ela Beach, around a kilometre from an upmarket resort that hosted numerous APEC delegations.
He lives under one roof with his wife and 30 other relatives spanning four generations, including siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews.
"The style we are living right now, it can change," Kalau’s younger cousin Junior Kalau said. "Everything. Us getting jobs. We need our own house."
RICH IN RESOURCES
PNG, roughly the size of California, has more than 7.3 million people scattered over its mountainous interior and hundreds of small islands.
While rich in minerals, timber, fish and energy resources, most rural people live subsistence lives and annual per capita GDP is around $3,600 a year, according to the IMF.
Moresby's shanty settlements, some decades-old, are mostly home to migrants from other parts of PNG who move to the capital to escape rural poverty and seek better access to social infrastructure including education and healthcare.
But a severe shortage of jobs and affordable housing has seen settlement populations swell out of control, with multiple families often sharing one roof, mostly pooling incomes from odd jobs and selling produce at street markets.