As someone who knows exactly nothing about PNG, I got curious and had an AI retrieve some numbers:

IFPRI's 2023 survey of ~2,700 rural PNG households (~900 in highland strata) found 57–70% of highland homes thatched; across those same strata, 8–12% were on-grid, 41–68% had solar, and 5–14% had no electricity. This nonrepresentative sample excluded communities more than two hours from motorable road or river access and "areas with known security risks".

The same study found adult literacy of 40–54% (27% for seasonal-highlands women), assessed using Tok Pisin (not English) sentences—directly for household heads and by household-head proxy for other members—and secondary/vocational completion of 4–8% [1].

Phones: the 2016–18 DHS put mobile-phone ownership at 34% of people aged 15–49 nationally [2]; a 2018 rural (lowlands, not highlands) IFPRI survey found just over half of households had no phone-owning member, and only about a quarter of the poorest quintile owned a phone [3]. Cellular connections—distinct from unique owners—subsequently rose from ~2.7M in 2019 [3] to 5.03M in early 2025 [4]; there were 2.57M internet users (24.1% of the population) in early 2025 [4].

[1] https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/05f7b268-cfd9-4b35-aba6-71c8... (Tables 2.4, 2.7, 2.8)

[2] https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/impactevaluations/improved-ta...

[3] https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/fd5ac6eb-5268-4db7-ac96-bf01...

[4] https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-papua-new-guin...