Comments

Thanks Stephen. Its also interesting for many governance programs what passes for engagement or commitment to governance reform from political elites, i.e. signing of MOUs or governance program launches where the Minister tells the DPs what they know they like to hear, rather than any track record of earlier engagement with reform. In my experience, national level governance bottlenecks are very difficult to change, and it does seems to be more difficult in the Pacific. Having said that, national level governance weakness have significant negative impacts on service delivery in other sectors such as health and education, especially at sub national level. To my mind, it makes it all the more important to focus on the 'under the hood' governance and financial management functions within health, within education etc, i.e. to support and strengthen these in spite of and to offset the weaknesses at national level. Some of the recent WB FinHealth and FinEd studies make a clear distinction between what Health or Education sector agencies have the capacity to change, vs the national level more intractable governance and PFM bottlenecks.

who will the current depreciation of kina impact the agribusiness involved in the domestic and export sector in PNG? Please clarify that.

Note many rural people had been registered in the grup dubu Nation but we never got any updates and we're wondering does the dubu Nation is real?question from Madang Raikos District, what do provincial and district leaders doing now?

And amazing story, of Kerry and your family. I am from Papua new Guinea, and while reading your story, it's really interesting. just imagine, if one of my three children would be your worker, and when he or she returns home, there's a change in whole family's, community's, and village as a whole. I appreciate and acknowledge you, for your most interesting stories thanks.

"Show me the money" is likely to remain unanswered until the aid program better demonstrates its usefulness as a tool of statecraft. For the foreign policy purists development per se is not what is important. Rather it is the relationships formed and the broader influence that can subsequently occur through the aid program. The new aid policy misses an opportunity to highlight the importance of this contribution to statecraft and how an effective aid program - as set out in the new aid policy - can maximise this going forward. Only when this contribution is better recognised and demonstrated is there likely to be a stronger basis for positivity regarding the aid budget going forward.

Hi Alyssa Great analysis on the national development particularly the Connect PNG initiative by the Government. I think if the Government wants to see drastic improvement and progress in the project they ought to increase the funding capacity and also fulfill their commitment of the 5.6% mentioned.

I feel it's really important projects, so I wanted to be up to date with the day to day progresses.

I am applaud of the conditions that are present in our society and our so call Country of our people who have been bought over from Vanuatu to make a living for their families back home and they have been given a choice between being in their homes or living abroad to live here for their own sake in order to support themselves and others to make a difference for themselves. Unfortunately this so call Scheme that the Government has is disgusting and Foreigner Affairs allows them to bring majority of slave labour into this state and other areas! The living conditions of these poor people are sharing a 3 to 4 bedroom house with 21 adults and majority of them aren’t even getting paid enough to cover rent, food etc ! Shame on the government, contractors or whoever! God help you all

This whining about being subcontractors has been going on for decades. There is actually no easy solution. Donors need financial and M&E reporting to the standard demanded of those who give them funds (ultimately taxpayers), which most Myanmar NGOs/CSOs cannot do. We, Mekong Economics, play a linking role - we did over 200 third-party monitoring missions for UNICEF last year. Two solutions: Explicitly label Myanmar a "failed state" and change reporting requirements to make direct LNGO/CSO funding possible; Two: change the present "7% add on for administration costs" allowed by LIFT and INGOs for local NGOs/CSOs. It means they never have capacity to do anything. Increase it to 30% (also for direct funding). That gives them funds to improve reporting, train staff, and even fund their own initiatives.

Well may you say the "development sector needs to learn how to shout “show me the money!” I'd prefer to shout "show me the results" - the demonstrable impacts of our aid Budgets. Not "inputs" like "money" - those expenditures should eventually be resulting in outputs benefitting the poor of our world. Please. FOR EXAMPLE - In 1990, 40,000 children under 5 died each day from preventable causes. It's since been reduced to 13,800 each day in 2021. As UNICEF has recorded: "The world made remarkable progress in child survival in the past three decades, and millions of children have better survival chances than in 1990—1 in 26 children died before reaching age five in 2021, compared to 1 in 11 in 1990. Moreover, progress in reducing child mortality rates has been accelerated in the 2000s period compared with the 1990s, with the annual rate of reduction in the global under-five mortality rate increasing from 1.8 per cent in 1990s to 4.0 per cent for 2000-2009 and 2.7 per cent for 2010-2021." What's been Australia's contributions then, to these significant results ?

Great work Ben! "Show me the money", and where it's spent, and on what. It is possible that aligning development with the national interest can be good practice. Equally it can divert attention from other pressing development priorities.

Hi Ema Finau. Very interesting. Will be in touch re: a CLA response. David