Bougainville is an autonomous region within PNG. After nearly a decade of a bloody conflict between 1989 and 1997 resulting in about 20,000 casualties, the PNG Government and representatives of Bougainville actors involved in the conflict signed the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) in 2001.
This agreement provided the legal basis for the establishment of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) in 2005 and a gradual transfer of powers from the national Government. It also included provisions for weapons disposal, governance arrangements, and a referendum on the political status of Bougainville, the outcome of which is subject to the ratification of the PNG National Parliament.

Since 2001, the Agreement has enabled political dialogue between the PNG Government and the ABG and paved the way for the referendum planned for June 2019.

In this period, Bougainville has remained largely peaceful thanks to ongoing peacebuilding efforts. That said, many challenges remain, including key joint decisions yet to be made, additional progress with weapons disposal, reconciliation, integration of ex-combatants and outliers to the peace process, community confidence in the process and social cohesion. The planned referendum will be a critical milestone in this process.

Under the terms of the Bougainville Peace Agreement, signed in 2001, the Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) have agreed that a referendum on Bougainville’s long-term political future will be conducted by June 2020.

The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, the Hon. Peter O’Neill, working closely in conjunction with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, the United Nations and the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, approached former Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern earlier in the year, and invited him to become Chairman of the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC), to help guide the Commission towards the agreed referendum goal, and Mr. Ahern has accepted and commenced that role.

Papua New Guinea in the South-West Pacific Ocean, population 8 million, 60% in the Youth category, is a country of immense cultural and biological diversity, in which only 18% of the population lives in urban centres. The country is one of the least explored culturally and geographically, with some 850 different languages spoken by more than 1,000 indigenous tribes. Very much a developing country, it has the third biggest rain forest in the world, guards one-third of the world’s tuna stocks, and has a vast storehouse of gold, silver, nickel, oil and gas.

The islands of Bougainville were part of German New Guinea until World War I, and were then annexed to the Australian New Guinea Territories. In 1975 they became part of independent Papua New Guinea. With a population of almost half a million speaking 21 district languages, 8 sub-languages and 39 dialects, and with considerable cultural diversity, both within and between language groups, Bougainville fits the Papua New Guinea pattern of remarkable cultural and linguistic diversity.

The United Nations Peace Building Fund (PBF) has been extremely active in providing support to PNG since 2015, through its participating donor countries Australia, Belgium, Germany, Japan, New Zealand and Norway

The PBF is currently implementing three projects in Bougainville- Sustaining Peace in Bougainville which facilitates political dialogue, peace awareness and the implementation of weapons’ disposal; Gender & Youth which supports women, youth and people living with disabilities, empowering them all to participate in the referendum; the Referendum Support Project which facilitates the work of the Bougainville Referendum Commission (BRC)

The work of the BRC, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ahern, will combine the work of both governments with that of all their multilateral and bilateral partners.

Since leaving office Mr. Ahern over the last decade has been engaged with peace processes in several countries, meeting delegations and discussing the procedures and negotiations involved with conflict resolution. Focusing on the most difficult complex and dangerous conflicts where others are unable to operate.

• For four years Mr Ahern was a member of  The World Economic Forum Agenda Council on Conflict Resolution.
• Since 2011 Mr. Ahern has been a member of the International Group dealing with the Conflict in the Basque Country with the late Kofi Annan, Jonathan Powell organisation Inter Mediate and others.
• In the Ukraine Mr. Ahern has worked with the Nobel Prize Winner, Former President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and his foundation Crisis Management Initiative.
• Mr Ahern in Turkey is involved with Democratic Progress Institute.
• Mr. Ahern is Honorary Adjunct Professor of Mediation and Conflict Intervention in NUI Maynooth.
• Mr Ahern will shortly take up his role as Honorary Professor of Peace Studies at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace and Security, Queens University, Belfast.