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Papua New Guinea

Updated: July 2026

Key Insights
The resources applied by the Papua New Guinean government to collect, compile, and publish national accounts data are severely inadequate.

The national statistical agency, the National Statistical Office (NSO), operates under severe structural, operational, and financial constraints:
  • Geographical and Infrastructure Barriers: Papua New Guinea's rugged topography-comprising mountainous highlands, dense rainforests, and isolated island provinces-makes physical field data collection logistically difficult and expensive. Transport links across many provinces remain poor, resulting in persistent gaps in local survey coverage.
  • Large Rural and Informal Economy: The vast majority of the population relies on subsistence agriculture, informal trade, and small-scale cash cropping. Accurately measuring non-monetised rural production and informal economic activity requires frequent, resource-intensive household and agricultural surveys that state budgets cannot sustain.
  • Severe Budgetary and Capacity Shortfalls: The NSO faces chronic underfunding, which directly limits its ability to recruit and retain specialized technical staff, update administrative business registries, and modernise digital data processing systems.
  • Significant Release Lags: Delays in conducting baseline surveys-such as the national population census, household income and expenditure surveys, and economic censuses-mean national accounts frequently rely on outdated baselines, causing substantial time lags in official macroeconomic publications.
  • Heavy Reliance on External Technical Support: Major statistical operations and capacity-strengthening projects rely heavily on financial and technical assistance from foreign development partners, such as the Australian Government (DFAT), the World Bank, and UN agencies.
QUICK LINKS
Economics:   
GDP DATA QUALITY   /   GDP SIZE   /   GDP GROWTH   /   WEALTH   /   INEQUALITY   /   DEBT
Demographics:   
DATA QUALITY    /    POPULATION PROFILE

E.S.G.:   
ENVIRONMENTAL    /    SOCIAL    /    GOVERNANCE

 
ECONOMICS
DEMOGRAPHICS
E.S.G.
E.S.G. sections:    ENVIRONMENTAL    /    SOCIAL    /    GOVERNANCE  

 
ENVIRONMENT

The World Economics Environment Index combines carbon and methane emissions, with data on air quality, access to safe water and average temperature. The variables are combined into an Index using equal weights.

Environmental Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Environmental Index
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Country Rank
Order		 Environment
Index
0-100		 Carbon
Emissions
Index, 0-100		 Methane
Emissions
Index, 0-100		 Air
Quality
Index, 0-100		 Water
Access
Index, 0-100		 Temperature
2024
Index, 0-100



Mozambique 89 71.3 99.9 97.9 81.3 61.0 16.3
Trinidad and Tobago 90 71.3 99.7 99.5 48.5 98.8 10.3
Lesotho 91 71.1 100.0 99.9 79.3 23.5 52.6
Mongolia 92 71.0 99.6 98.5 38.9 35.3 82.9
Honduras 93 70.8 99.9 99.3 77.0 62.9 14.7
Dominican Republic 94 70.5 99.7 99.2 96.4 41.3 15.7
Lebanon 95 70.5 99.8 99.7 68.0 44.3 40.9
Suriname 96 70.3 100.0 99.9 88.6 52.9 10.2
Papua New Guinea 97 70.1 99.9 99.1 94.2 41.8 15.7
Burundi 98 69.9 100.0 99.9 61.6 59.7 28.1
Algeria 99 69.7 98.5 92.8 70.6 68.7 18.0
Brazil 100 69.6 95.7 61.9 90.7 86.4 13.1
United States 101 69.6 56.4 38.0 97.1 97.3 59.3
Guinea 102 69.0 100.0 98.6 45.2 90.9 10.1
Nicaragua 103 69.0 100.0 99.2 82.0 52.6 11.3
Tajikistan 104 69.0 99.9 99.5 17.8 52.4 75.6
Guatemala 105 68.8 99.8 99.0 73.9 53.4 17.6
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Data Notes
Emissions Index numbers shown on a scale of 0-100.
0 = Bad, 100 = Good.

Environmental Index Methodology: Total Carbon, Total Methane, Air Quality, access to safe drinking water and temperature data for each country has been indexed on a scale of 0-100 by using the standard deviation from the mean for each country. The implied Indexes are averaged to calculate a total Environmental Index which focuses on each country's relative environmental impact.

Temperature Data Source: CCKP. World Bank Group, Climate Change Knowledge Portal and indexed. An index of 100 incdicates cool temperatures where 0 indicates a hot annual average temperature.

The displayed data are derived from 2024 Temperature, Carbon and Methane Data. Air Quality and Access to Safe Water is the latest data available.
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SOCIAL

The World Economics social Index uses United Nations HID and World Bank data to create indexes for life expectancy, median age, years of schooling, spend on education and the percentage of the population in work, to reflect social progress. The individual Indexes are combined into the overall Social Index using equal weights.

Social Factors Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Social Factors Index
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Country Rank
Order		 Social
Factors
Index		 Social
Factors
Rating (A-E)		 Life
Expectancy
Years		 Median
Age
Years		 Mean Years
Schooling
Years		 Spend on
Education
% of GDP		 Population
in Work
Population %




Paraguay 105 58.3 D 74.1 27.0 4.7 3.3% 66.9%
Myanmar 106 57.9 D 67.3 30.1 6.4 2.1% 53.6%
Brunei 107 56.8 D 75.7 32.7 9.2 4.4% 58.7%
Ghana 108 56.7 D 65.9 21.3 8.3 4.0% 65.2%
Serbia 109 56.6 D 77.1 44.4 2.9 3.6% 47.8%
Guatemala 110 56.4 D 72.9 23.4 5.7 3.1% 56.1%
Suriname 111 56.1 D 73.9 28.6 3.8 5.0% 48.7%
Laos 112 53.9 D 69.5 24.9 5.4 2.3% 75.5%
Papua New Guinea 113 53.7 D 66.4 22.8 10.5 1.4% 45.9%
Rwanda 114 52.8 D 68.2 19.9 12.8 3.8% 81.0%
Pakistan 115 52.3 D 67.9 20.6 4.5 2.4% 47.9%
Nepal 116 51.5 D 70.9 25.3 5.1 4.2% 75.6%
India 117 51.3 D 72.5 28.8 6.7 4.5% 42.8%
Mauritania 118 50.6 D 68.9 17.4 4.9 1.9% 39.6%
Sierra Leone 119 48.6 D 62.2 19.7 11.4 9.1% 53.0%
Namibia 120 48.5 D 67.7 21.3 7.2 9.6% 45.6%
Gambia 121 45.7 D 66.3 18.6 4.6 2.8% 51.0%

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Data Notes
Social Factors Index numbers shown on a scale of 0-100
0 = Poor social metrics, 100 = Excellent social metrics.

Data source: United Nations, 2025, Washington D.C.
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GOVERNANCE

The Governance Index combines data on Rule of Law, Press Freedom, Political Rights and Corruption Perceptions. Read more about the Governance Ratings methodology

Governance Index
Index: 0 = Extremely poor, 100 = Good as it gets.
Ranked by Governance Index
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Country
 Rank
Order		 Governance
Index
(0-100 Index)		 Governance
Rating
(A-E)		 Rule of
Law
(0-100 Index)		 Press
Freedom
(0-100 Index)		 Political
Rights
(0-100 Index)		 Corruption
Perceptions
(0-100 Index)




Indonesia 81 45.1 C 44.3 37.0 71.4 27.6
Zambia 82 45.0 C 34.4 56.7 57.1 31.6
Ukraine 83 44.7 C 25.0 66.2 57.1 30.3
Oman 84 43.1 C 64.4 37.8 19.0 51.3
Benin 85 42.4 C 35.0 42.5 50.0 42.1
Jordan 86 42.4 C 55.1 32.3 33.3 48.7
Philippines 87 42.1 C 37.3 41.8 64.3 25.0
Sierra Leone 88 42.1 C 26.4 54.8 59.5 27.6
Papua New Guinea 89 41.8 C 34.1 58.7 57.1 17.1
Serbia 90 41.8 C 46.4 46.8 47.6 26.3
Rwanda 91 41.7 C 53.7 32.6 21.4 59.2
Paraguay 92 41.5 C 33.0 51.8 66.7 14.5
Bolivia 93 40.9 C 16.3 51.2 76.2 19.7
Bosnia and Herzegovina 94 40.8 C 39.1 51.3 45.2 27.6
Kenya 95 40.8 C 39.7 46.5 54.8 22.4
Thailand 96 40.7 C 54.8 50.9 31.0 26.3
Morocco 97 40.4 C 45.0 46.5 35.7 34.2

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Data Notes
Index numbers are all rebased and shown on a scale of 0-100.
Governance: 0 = Extremely poor governance, 100 = As good as it gets.
Corruption Perception: 0 = Bad, 100 = Good.
Rule of Law: 0 = low rule of law, 100 = High rule of law.
Press Freedom: 0 = Low press freedom, 100 = High press freedom.
Political Rights: 0 = Low political rights, 100 = High political rights.

Source: World Bank (Rule of Law), RSF (Press Freedom), Freedom House,Freedom in the World Report (Political Rights), Transparency International (Corruption Perceptions).

All source data has been re-indexed on a scale of 0-100 for comparison purposes.

The displayed data are derived from 2025 data sources.
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