From 25 to 30 September 2026, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM), and the Central Department of Economics at Tribhuvan University (CEDECON-TU), with support from CGIAR Policy Innovations, co-host a six-day International Capacity Building Training on Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Modelling for Policy Analysis in Kathmandu, Nepal. Delivered under IFPRI's Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA) framework, the training brings together twenty-six participants from seven countries.
Papua New Guinea is represented by two participants: one from the Department of Prime Minister and National Executive Council (PMNEC) and one from the Department of National Planning and Monitoring (DNPM). As part of IFPRI's ongoing support in building capacity in PNG, their participation is aimed at strengthening macroeconomic modelling capacity within PNG government departments, building on earlier CGE trainings held in Brisbane, Washington D.C., and Port Moresby. The training also supports PNG's national planning process as the country prepares to develop its Medium-Term Development Plan V (MTDP V), among other national planning priorities.
The program is structured in two parts: a three-day Foundation & Advanced Course covering Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), multiplier analysis, and an introduction to CGE modelling, including IFPRI's Excel-interface model and the newly introduced RIAPA.AI tool followed by a three-day Dynamic CGE Modelling course covering elasticities, closures, sensitivity analysis, and scenario building in both static and dynamic models. The training concludes with a group assignment, and participants continue to be supported after the training through a post-training research assignment, completed under the guidance of researchers from SANEM, IFPRI, and Tribhuvan University.
The training is led by a team of resource persons including Dr. Karl Pauw and Dr. James Thurlow of IFPRI's Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, Dr. Selim Raihan, Executive Director of SANEM, Dr. Barun Deb Pal, Research Coordinator at IFPRI, and Dr. Naveen Adhikari of Tribhuvan University.
