Development Policy Centre Podcast

This talk provides a survey of recent economic developments in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) since the end of the resource boom in 2014. The specific focus of the discussion will be on the country’s exchange rate policy. Theory suggests that the real exchange rate (RER) should depreciate following the observed fall in commodity prices. In practice, however, the imposition of foreign exchange controls has led to a large backlog in foreign currency orders suggesting that the kina is significantly overvalued. A related paper estimating the extent to which PNG’s RER is currently misaligned will be discussed. The results of the paper suggest that the kina should depreciate by about 20 per cent. Otherwise PNG is likely to pay high economic costs as real overvaluation sustained through foreign exchange restrictions led to resource misallocation, lower economic growth, black markets, and ultimately a balance of payments crisis in many other developing countries in the past.

Africa has a rich history; old and diverse cultures; and abundant and varied natural resources. Yet, a large majority of Africans remain poor, disenfranchised and oppressed. For five and half centuries, the trajectory of Africa’s autonomous development was distorted by the intervention of nascent Europe: the slave trade, the colonial venture and the Cold War. A legacy of the colonial system, the prototype independent African state has failed to deliver freedom, democracy and prosperity, giving rise to a crisis of legitimacy and relevance. Against this backdrop, this lecture will discuss the basic causes of the democratic deficit in Africa today and its prospects. The discourse will focus on the concept of self-determination as a political right of: one, a nation to independence; two, a people to a government of their choice; and three, diverse groups to autonomy in the management of their day-to-day affairs. Ambassador Andebrhan Welde Giorgis is President of Eri-Platform, an international civic association pr

In this podcast, you'll hear a discussion forum, jointly organised by the Development Policy Centre and the Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE), which is the latest in a series on the evaluation of Australian aid. The event focuses on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's (DFAT)new aid evaluation policy and two recent evaluations. Recently, DFAT has overhauled its approach to evaluation, with a new Aid Evaluation Policy and, for the first time, an Annual Aid Evaluation Plan - both available on the ODE website. The Head of ODE will explain what these mean, and what difference they will make. The $336 million, ten-year Eastern Indonesia Roads Improvement Program was one of Australia's largest ever aid projects, and one of the most successful. This recent ODE evaluation assesses its results, and draws out the lessons for aid-funded infrastructure programs elsewhere. Remote service delivery in PNG is always a challenge. But a recent evaluation of remote health patrols run by Australian Doctors Inter

Robin Davies, Associate Director of the Development Policy Centre, interviews German economist Inge Kaul, a leading thinker on global public goods. This interview forms the basis for a blog post (https://exit.sc/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdevpolicy.org%2Fpublic-enemies-global-public-goods-in-aid-policy-narratives-20170407%2F and Discussion Paper (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2941164) on the issue of aid policy and global public goods. This is part 2 of the interview, you can find part 1 here: https://soundcloud.com/devpolicy/robin-davies-interviews-inge-kaul-pt-1

Robin Davies, Associate Director of the Development Policy Centre, interviews German economist Inge Kaul, a leading thinker on global public goods. This interview forms the basis for a blog post (http://devpolicy.org/public-enemies-global-public-goods-in-aid-policy-narratives-20170407/) and Discussion Paper (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2941164) on the issue of aid policy and global public goods.

Human society is full of would-be ‘change agents’. A restless mix of campaigners, lobbyists, and officials, both individuals and organisations, are set on transforming the world. They want to improve public services, reform laws and regulations, guarantee human rights, get a fairer deal for those on the sharp end, achieve greater recognition for any number of issues, or simply be treated with respect. Scholarly discussions of change are fragmented with few conversations crossing disciplinary boundaries, rarely making it onto the radars of those actively seeking change. Duncan Green’s new book 'How Change Happens', bridges the gap between academia and practice. It brings together the best research from a range of academic disciplines and the evolving practical understanding of activists to explore the topic of social and political change. Drawing on many first-hand examples from the global experience of Oxfam, as well as the author’s insights from studying and working on international development, it tests ide

Development aid from donor countries amounts to more than US $130 billion annually. More than half of that amount comes from European Union nations. However, sustainable development cannot be achieved through aid alone. The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development have underlined the importance of domestic resource mobilisation and investments – both public and private – for sustainable social, environmental, and economic development efforts to take hold. The paradigm has changed and the European Union’s development policy will be adapted within the framework of the European Union Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy in the light of the 2030 Agenda and new global challenges and also taking into consideration the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The Director-General discusses European Union development policy in light of these developments, paying particular attention to the Pacific region. This event was co-presented by the Development Policy Cent

Speakers: James Brumby, The World Bank; Luis Felipe Lopez Calva, The World Bank; Natasha Smith, DFAT; Dr Helen Szoke, Oxfam Australia; and Professor Veronica Taylor, ANU. The Oceania launch of the World Development Report 2017, including a presentation of the report and a panel discussion, was held on February 14 as a side event to the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference The World Development Report 2017 on Governance and the Law explores how policies for security, growth and equity can effectively achieve their goals by addressing the underlying drivers of governance. Building on the traditional concern about implementation problems resulting from limited state capacity, this report digs deeper to understand also how individuals and groups, with differing degrees of influence in the decision-making arena, bargain over the choice of policies, distribution of resources, and how to change the rules themselves to shape future interactions.

Foreign Minister The Hon Julie Bishop MP delivered the opening address at the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference on February 15, held at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. In the address, Minister Bishop announced several new initiatives and spoke of the strategic importance of the aid program.

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Chair: Stephen Howes, ANU Speakers: Robin Davies, ANU Adam Kamradt-Scott, University of Sydney Phoebe Wynn-Pope, Australian Red Cross Paul McPhun, Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia Jamie Isbister, DFAT The humanitarian aid system is in crisis. It’s a crisis of identity, financing and conduct. Agencies set up to deal with the immediate impacts of traumatic events find themselves have become de facto providers of long-term development assistance to displaced communities. Agencies set up to develop global norms and provide technical assistance to governments are facing pressure to coordinate flash responses to transboundary threats. In aggregate, funding for crisis response falls far short of needs and is ad hoc and short-term. Humanitarian actors are more than ever divided over traditional principles of humanitarian action, particularly independence and impartiality. Many of these problems have been thrown into sharp relief by the civil conflict in Syria and it

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Chair: Joel Negin What does Australian aid need more of, or less of? What are its ailments and what shape its cures? This panel presents the best, the most original, the most transformational, the most innovative ideas to get more bang from the 4 billion dollar buck that is the Australian aid program. Following the 3-Minute-Thesis format, rival advocates will battle it out for your vote. For something quick and different, listen to 3MAP: the Three-Minute Aid Pitch. Order of presentations: Chris Ostendorf – Leading on social investment in development Therese Faulkner – Establishing an Australian technical cooperation organization Ashlee Betteridge – Communicating aid better Dennis Altman – Integrating rights into foreign policy Bob McMullan – Establishing an Australian development finance institution for the Pacific Chris Roche – Building a movement of human rights and planetary defenders Matt Dornan – Expanding Pacific labour

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Speakers: Guo Peiyuan, General Manager, SynTao; Jeon Hyunjin, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility Team, LG Electronics HQ; Simon Cramp, Director of Private Sector Development, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Prabodh Saxena, Principal Secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh. Chaired by Anthea Mulakala of The Asia Foundation. Involving the private sector in development cooperation is a priority today not only for many Western countries, but also for many Asian ones. Several Asian providers of development cooperation have vibrant private sectors who are expanding their sphere of influence and practice into development cooperation. Asian companies are often the implementers of infrastructure projects, whether through lines of credit or tied aid. At the other end of the spectrum many Asian multinationals are involved in corporate social responsibility and shared value initiatives in the region. This panel will explore how collaborative approaches wi

Keynote address, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference, ANU Speaker: Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Development Specialist, World Bank and Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard University Despite what today’s headlines might convey, life for most people in most developing countries has never been better. This should be rightly celebrated, but improving basic levels of human welfare from a low base was the relatively ‘easy’ part. To consolidate and expand these achievements, the key development challenge remains building the state’s capability to implement incrementally more complex and contentious tasks, at scale (e.g., justice, regulation, taxation, land administration) and those tasks inherently requiring extended forms of human interaction (classroom teaching, curative care). These are fundamentally different types of challenges, however, ones for which our prevailing aid architecture was not designed and on which achievements to date are mostly flat or declining: if current trends continue, only about 10% of those

Robin Davies interviews Publish What You Fund’s London-based CEO, Rupert Simons and Elise Dufief, the organisation’s Research and Monitoring Manager, who is in the process of reviewing the methodology used for the Aid Transparency Index, to discuss the current issues in aid transparency.

The independent Tax Review Committee (TRC) established by the Government of PNG recently completed a comprehensive review of the country’s tax system involving extensive and transparent stakeholder consultation over the course of two years. This culminated in two volumes of reports (inclusive of significant economic and tax reform recommendations) which were formally presented to the PNG Government in November, 2015. The final report highlighted the high risks of PNG’s overdependence on the extractive sector and its vulnerability to the cyclical vagaries of global commodities pricing and recommended a ‘paradigm shift’ in the governance, management and stimulation of sustainable economic development. PNG’s vulnerability has become pronounced in recent months with the sudden drop in the oil price resulting in fiscal distress, lack of foreign exchange, and economic slowdown. PNG is at a precarious crossroads and tax reform provides an opportunity for a strategic transformation. The report provides some realistic

For generations of young Australians with a passion for social justice, volunteering in developing or indigenous communities has been a rite of passage. Bill Armstrong has been deeply involved in this movement since the 1960s, working with organisations such as the Overseas Service Bureau (now Australian Volunteers International), and Indigenous Community Volunteers. Robin Davies discussed his work in an interview for our Aid Profiles series. View the story here: http://devpolicy.org/aidprofiles/2016/12/12/bill-armstrong-volunteering-with-attitude/

It is well known that gender-based and sexual violence are major problems facing Papua New Guinea. What is less widely recognized are the grassroots efforts underway to combat these problems, and the individuals leading those efforts. Everlyne Sap is one of those individuals. She is a gender advocate and chairperson of the Family and Sexual Violence Steering Committee of the Restorative Justice Initiative Association (RJIA) at Porgera in Enga Province, PNG. Camilla Burkot interviewed Everlyne during the State of the Pacific 2016 conference, convened by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program at The Australian National University.

In this podcast, part of a series of talks from the recent PNG Update, you will hear a collection of speeches showcasing the ANU-UPNG Partnership. In the first part, Nelson Nema, Professor Stephen Howes, Rohan Fox and Dr Manoj Pandey provide an update on PNG’s current economic performance. Following this are Peter Kanaparo and Dr Grant Walton, with a discussion on the unintended consequences of the PNG Tuition Fee Free policy (TFF). You can find a link to both presentations at the Devpolicy website (devpolicy.anu.edu.au) under the 2016 PNG Update tab.

In this podcast, part of a series of speeches from the recent PNG Update, you will hear Mr. Bruce Davis, Australian High Commissioner to PNG; reflect on the diversity and strategic importance of the AUS – PNG relationship. Charles Abel, Honorable Minister for National Planning at the PNG Government, also speaks. Abel discusses the importance of PNG’s transition to a sustainable economy, and arguing that the responsible use of renewable resources is essential if PNG is to sustain growth beyond the resource boom. You can find a link to both speeches at the Devpolicy website (devpolicy.anu.edu.au) under the 2016 PNG Update tab.

During times of disaster, people naturally want to help. Unfortunately, they sometimes choose to do so in ways that do more harm and create more chaos: like emptying their medicine cabinets of expired goods and shipping them off overseas. Pharmacist Phillip Passmore has helped swamped local health systems deal with dodgy or unneeded drugs in post-tsunami Aceh and much, much more during his fascinating career. Read our Aid Profile on Phillip here: http://devpolicy.org/aidprofiles/2016/11/07/phillip-passmore-not-your-ordinary-pharmacist/