Comments

Thanks for the comment Robert. Sorry for my delayed reply, I've been on leave. You've made some interesting points, thank you. It's not really directly related to public opinion but I think the sustainability point is particularly interesting. It would require funding, but there is incredible scope for researchers to be studying sustainability. For example, by visiting large infrastructure projects in SE Asia and the Pacific a decade after completion to see which are still functional. This would be easy, as the projects can all be found in OECD or WB/ADB/DFAT data. That would enable a sample to be randomly selected and then visited. Infrastructure would be particularly easy, given how easy it is to ascertain visually whether a project is functioning or not. But other sectors could be done too. Just a question of funding. Terence

Thanks Paul. Yes, fear of the police remains a significant - and well-founded - factor contributing to low reporting of victimisation in PNG. I also take the point about the bulging police belts full of taser and other gadgets. The appalling recent case involving the tasering a 95 year old resident of an aged care facility (not that far from where I write this) springs to mind

a sound analysis, and relevant concerns over land grabbing by the wealthy, benefiting from the conflict ( although that wealthy hierarchy also tends to be located in NCD, as well as the many displaced persons)...you're perhaps a bit ambiguous when suggesting that NGOs harp back to some pristine ( perhaps mythical) past for solutions, while suggesting the solutions must fundamentally be local.. I agree with the latter, but some of that local capacity is drawing upon the experience of the past, at least before big bucks would be shuffled about by logging or oil companies, or the State... the fact that there is such commitment, and indeed courage, within communities to address problems, such as SARV, demonstrates the way forward...it has entailed positive support from outside, including from local and some international NGOs, and some locally savvy church workers, and responsive police... Clearly, communities have expectations from the police, which have gone beyond the police's practical capacity to respond, leading to negative outcomes for many households... as with law and order and gangs elsewhere ( eg in Milne Bay and West New Britain) the law enforcement agencies have limited capacity, and can sometimes prove counterproductive , especially where they show inadequate local respect for community members. Their capacity is dependent upon positive engagement, and the hard graft being done by the community itself. How best to help communities, including when some of their own members are armed and terrorise them, is a major challenge for Hela and elsewhere in PNG...and, of course, various places overseas, as well...

thanks Judy and Sinclair, some very useful thoughts and suggestions ( including caution over using managing contractors or the like, who get tied up with complex contractual and copyright agreements, rather than commitments to public access, in conducting such surveys)... there are also all the issues related to how the State can respond or minimise potential victimisation, including at times from the police themselves. We're aware of fear, especially by women in PNG to report crimes, as the police response in some cases can be unsatisfactory or sometimes worse. As you recall during RAMSI the AFP officers, with their belts full of gadgets, tended to instill fear ( which may have been useful regarding the waring factions) rather than community engagement. I'm over in the UK briefly now, and here also people say the police response can be highly intimidating now, with teams coming in to simple accidents or crime scenes and stringing everyone up, onlookers and all. I discussed this briefly with a retired senior female police officer, who bemoaned the belts full of taser and gadgets, and the apparent loss of community engagement and policing skills in forces in the UK. She said it was crucial to keep the police standards unarmed, witting observing that if she'd had a gun there'd have been times in the heat of the moment she'd have used it, to her subsequent regret and negative outcomes...

Thanks for sharing these thoughts, though it was long overdue considering the Puma energy crisis culminating from BPNG forex issues and the need for policy intervention by the government. When considering this issue at the earliest instance, it becomes evidently clear that the matter was a policy matter, but the approach taken was from the operational side of things. For instance, BPNG is a regulatory institution and operates within the policy and regulatory environment and answers questions of economic and financial policies issues. This is a clear line of powers and responsibilities, but to engage directly with Puma on this matter by the government is giving the meat to the dogs. Instead of the government stepping over and initiate policy intervention and change, to address this issue, it rather encourages and forces BPNG to go head to head with Puma. Instead of the government playing the mediating role as a neutral party to implement a policy measure and resolve the matter, it rather takes a by stander role and watch 2 completely different entities from different environment engages in a conflict without appropriate dispute resolution measure. No body is going to develop and implement a policy now, not even BPNG or Puma, the buck stops at the Government, and the Government must take on that responsibility.

Michael, your perceptive insight into the horrific violence that besets Hela ends with a paragraph that offers hope to a region subject to the worst that humanity can devise. People often feel powerless to help when reading such articles. Your final sentence says "Let's support them." How? In what way? Let's start writing articles that finish with Actions. We can take a leaf out of the Free West Papua Movement website that lists a number of actions any reader anywhere can take. https://www.freewestpapua.org/take-action/

This looks like an excellent suggestion, and the case for both establishing international compatibility (and thus comparability) of surveys and the public release of data to researchers appears to be irrefutable. As for "outsourcing survey work to private contractors means that the data sets produced appear to remain the intellectual property of the company", that presumably is primarily an issue of how contracts are written, not who does the work.

Thank you for your interesting analysis, Terence, and I do hope your health improves. Your Blog opens up the question of the quantity and quality of aid. The neglect of the quality and effectiveness of development aid provided by donors is more troubling than the amounts allocated in budgets, in my view. It is astonishing that so little attention is given in development aid to the idea of the sustainability of benefits from aid and the dissemination of those benefits at scale. For example, from all the 111 education development projects implemented by donors in Indonesia since the 1970s, about 80% were never followed up to see if their benefits sustained. One consequence for donors of that neglect is that our understanding of how and why change and development occurs remains rudimentary. Furthermore, according to donors’ own project completion evaluations, only about 50% of the benefits from education projects are assessed as likely sustainable. That is ‘likely', not actually sustainable (say) two or more years after aid ceases. And so, aid money continues to be invested in less than optimal designs and activities — at best. The big Australian education projects, the Australia Indonesia Basic Education Program and the Education Partnership that ran consecutively from 2006 until 2017 were evaluated as less successful in quality and results than Australia’s much smaller and earlier projects in East Nusa Tenggara and in East Java. This is a slightly different matter, but it also points to the neglect of known qualities at the expense of quantity in the form of more dollars. To answer the question in the title of your Blog, Terence, I suspect that if Australian taxpayers had a better understanding of development aid’s quality and longer-term outcomes, their support for aid would wane much further.

Thank You Kelly Samof and Stephen Howes. This article is outstanding, it gave me deep insights in examining the extent to which the 2021 PNG budget met its projected revenue targets and the reasons for shortfalls.

Dr. Amanda and Team, can we have an update of this research on internet prices. I understand that your last update on this subject matter was in early to mid April 2022 and the new mobile operator launched later that month. I had previously stated that retail internet prices are mainly driven by competition in the retail space. I would be good to see the impact of competition on the retail internet prices through the entry of the new mobile operator. Ebu Gomana

Thank you Kingtau, This is a good, interesting point, increasing education levels might bring other benefits too, including helping to foster a stronger more cohesive civil-society, which then becomes catalytic in political change. If this is true big question becomes how to significantly improve education in a poorly governed state? That's another one I don't know the answer too. But it is certainly worth considering much more. Terence

We need effective policies to minimize ethnic diversity. When everyone identifies as part of the same nation, they're more likely to prioritize national interests over smaller group connections. This aims to create more homogeneity in PNG. The idea of "Unity in Diversity" only holds true with comprehensive education across the country. Average education level in PNG is around grade four-A long way to go. Just my thoughts.