Comments

Excellent points raised in this article. thank you for sharing and for highlighting the issues that impact on Solomon Islands public.

So insightful. Thank you for putting things into perspective. I have a question I would like to ask. If an election is triggered by a vote of no confidence before the 5th anniversary of Parliament, does the constitutional requirement for an election on the fifth anniversary of Parliament still hold?

Ruth, thank you for a sobering piece that flags the dark reality of big money aid. It takes a degree of fortitude to point out the elephants in the room and you have done it. Big money project support is about erecting visual edifices for the public to admire and buy influence. In your role you would be aware of how the system works and what’s at stake for the players. You speak for the ninety five percent who live a largely traditional lifestyle and hope that opportunity for their children improves. Influence peddlers only need buy off one percent to gain access to your natural resources. A little to the north west this has become an artform. Your comment that development partners need to familiarise themselves with social needs through the lens of your citizens and do things with, rather than for you, is obvious but ignored. I would suggest that government as bequeathed at independence is not fit for purpose in social settings like yours. Untethered from grass roots control, it has become the scaffold upon which the issues you are tasked to expose are built and exploited. Sadly, your governments, the creation of another culture, have evolved into institutions that do not represent the interests of your communities and you know why. Given the social context, those who wait patiently for “government” to deliver services and economic opportunity are destined to remain disappointed. Unless a new course is set your burgeoning youth bubble will become increasingly dissatisfied until something breaks. For the same reason, cracks in the façade of social order to the north west of you have recently visibly widened. I do not hold out hope for the future wellness of your people under status quo. I am a great believer in returning power to the base where it always belonged. I think there are ways to do it within the existing structures but like you the path to development you have flagged is not one of them.

Thank you Ceridwen!

Thanks Terence for this work! Very interesting and helpful.

Thank you Ian, That's an excellent comment. The findings of the evaluation sound very sensible and nuanced. They ought to be very useful to the aid program. The evaluation also sounds like a very helpful resource for scholars and other aid practitioners. If the evaluation is available online could you please post a link to it? Thanks again. Terence

Hi Rohan, Good point. To clarify my point: If you compare 2019 with 2022, Australia and New Zealand's relative rankings have not changed much. (i.e., compared to most other donors, they drew on budget support more pre-Covid too.) Similarly, relative to other recipients most PICs received comparatively large shares of budget support both before and during Covid. It is true though that, as you say, absolute %s have increased in both cases. And this is a good point, in terms of absolutes both Australia and NZ use budget support more than they did once, so should be thinking about how to deliver it well more. The same is true for Pacific recipients. As an aside, 2021 was a really big year for budget support in Australia and NZ. In an absolute sense it now seems to be on the wane. Thanks again for your comment. Terence

Thank you Aulola for a good comment. I agree, New Zealand and Australia have tried budget support in the Pacific. It would be interesting to learn more about the circumstances associated with its success and failure. I also agree that, in practice, no donor will ever abandon all their projects in favour of an entirely budget support focused approach. In reality, (good donors) will adopt a mix. Thanks again Terence

I was Chairperson of the PNG Red Cross Manus Branch during the set up of the first Detention Centre. I was not given permission by the Manus authority to accompany two Officials from the Australian Red Cross to enter the camp. Even though I was granted the permission by those at the national level. I sought work and got employed by the Company Braodspectrum towards the end of the time here.

Very interesting and important issue Terence, thanks. I have recently been involved in a review of Australian budget support in the Pacific and your overall comments, and book's findings, ring true. Our review found several positive aspects to Australian budget support. First, Australian funding was genuinely additional to, and did not substitute or displace, the partner government's own domestic expenditure effort ("fungibility"). That is an important first step to making a positive impact. Second, Australian budget support was particularly valued because it was (i) 100% grant (not adding to debt) but also because (ii) it was "predictable" - sometimes moreso than from their own government - so local managers could plan programs with some degree of confidence. Third, because much of the partner government's own expenditure effort in the health sector was absorbed by salaries, the "additionality" of Australian budget support then funded important and high impact outreach programs delivering primary health care to more remote rural areas that would not have occurred in the absence of that funding. But our review also identified some challenges. For example, it is not always clear or obvious how even relatively large amounts of budget support achieve "results" or impact on the ground. That is particularly because the health system strengthening aspects that are potentially available with budget support occur "under the bonnet" in the Ministry of Health and are not necessarily as visible or obvious as a more traditional, stand alone, donor driven infrastructure project. Another challenge is that for budget support to be the catalyst for policy dialogue, and to get traction in terms of health system reform, there needs to be a robust monitoring and evaluation system that could / should then used to generate insights, lessons, and ongoing program improvements and feedback loops. Such active monitoring, evaluation and learning is different to, but builds on, more routine "reporting" of expenditure and disbursements. The book you have reviewed would seem to have good lessons to help strengthen the impact of budget support. Another useful resource is a 2021 World Bank report titled "Following the Government Playbook?: Channeling Development Assistance for Health through Country Systems". Thanks again for your blog.

Definitely going to check out the book. Interesting read and while I largely agree on carefully assessing budget support as an aid tool to match context, I think that both New Zealand and Australia have tried in the Pacific to use budget support as a form of strengthening governance and engaging in policy dialogue & reform with Pacific island countries (take Samoa and Tonga’s respective joint policy reform dialogue for instance). In my view, its too dismissive to say that budget support is an alternative donors may use so that they dont have to manage a thousand projects. Australia provides both sector and general budget support to many Pacific island countries, using both aid tools as a means of leveraging partnerships for effective development … and of course advancing national interests. Thanks for the much welcomed food for thought.

Good Morning Policy Advisors and Makers alike, For PNG, Land Reform TALKS are as old as the 19, 20 and 21 century. We are looking at the problem and talking about it. If we look at the solution and start planning to take a procedural approach to addressing the problem of land reform, its should become clearer for a solution in the near future. Relevant authorities and stakeholders should work together to educate customary land owners, time and again, so they understand the importance of land registration for development process. Landowners need to accept the importance of organizing themselves for development and clearly see where they will benefit. I bet, a lot of people have cloud cover over their head, when their hear land mobilization/registration. So, it will be good to start with what's going to be better understood by customary land owners, than to indulge and delve further into things that looks and sounds like myriad of complicated process. Just an opinion. James Gande