grants to provincial district and local level governments have been increased significantly signalling a major shift in the government s approach to delivering services to rural and remote areas while the large increase in funding to provincial and local governments will directly transfer large amounts of funds to rural areas it is expected that this will strain the capacity of the provinces to effectively implement the government s ambitious service delivery agenda moreover papua new guinea is to be commended for taking steps to establish its sovereign wealth fund which is expected to be operational by the end of