Papua New Guinea's National Agriculture Research Institute is partnering with civil society in the Highlands to help build resilience to future droughts.
Dry creek bed Photo: Supplied
Farmers and crop gardeners in many parts of the Highlands are still recovering from devastation caused by the El Nino-induced drought from 2015 to 2016.
A Hela province-based NGO figure who worked with the United Church, James Komengi, said that in response to the drought there was little effective help from provincial or central government.
He said there was no distribution of seeds, and that government relief supplies or funds were often misused or misdirected.
Mr Komengi said that NARI has chosen the United Church to work with in Hela because it led the drought impact assessment and response programmes.
"They would like this partnership to be established so that NARI will come up into Hela and set up here, and then they will look at building nurseries for sweet potato, english potato, onions and also look at livestock. So that looks lke a promising initiative that's coming in for the province."
He said the NARI programme in Hela would utilise funding from the European Union.
Mr Komengi said NGOs like Care International and World Vision have also been on the ground running programmes to help locals cope with the drought.