Comments

In life, everyone has different battle to fight for their betterment. The true warrior defeats and stands out on the battle as a legend. Brother you are legend of your own battle. Your future looks promising. All the best in your future endeavor. Last and not the least is your hard working and struggle parents, make them proud and happiest parents as they deserved that. Love you my Ekni brother.

https://devpolicy.org/pacific-islanders-in-australia-census-results-20230331/

Hi Stephen and team, very interesting to read this and thanks for sharing. Two thoughts: 1. The World Bank has Implementation Status Reports which have ratings allocated by managers while a project is still operational. These ratings are the equivalent of the DFAT "ongoing" ratings, no? It would be interesting to aggregate a random sample of ISR ratings and compare them against the ratings given in the respective ICR and see whether the WB also has an optimism bias. 2. In addition to the correlation between the abolition of ODE and the decline in ratings, I wonder whether there is also a correlation with initiatives that commenced shortly after the merger between AusAID and DFAT. If we assume that many Australian-funded initiatives are ~4 years, is it possible that initiatives commencing in 2014 or 2015, and getting rated from 2018 or 2019 onwards are also behind the decline in ratings? I'd love to see some analysis of that.

Just wondering: are the levels of effectiveness and efficiency, confidence in the systems to monitor and respond to these, and communication about same related to the integration of the development cooperation program within DFAT?

I think your explanation is on the money. Given our new govt’s announcement of establishing an Evaluator General I wonder if DFAT will eventually move to rebuild its Office of Development Effectiveness and the independent oversight committee.

There will always be other considerations and tradeoffs which will prevent a real, full-scale economic, social, and political union unless there are very real forces that compel the participants to put aside their own petty concerns and join together for the greater good. Even Europe was not united until it was decided beyond reasonable doubt that the next great war on the continent would be the last war it ever saw.

Have they released the ancestry figures from 2021 yet?

Absolutely agree, Sarah - a comprehensive social protection system includes both contributory and non-contributory schemes. Investments to strengthen retirement funds in general, and for women specifically, are critical. What we hope to emphasise here is that non-contributory old age benefits offer particular importance to women, and we should not assume that contributory schemes alone are adequate to provide income security in old age for women. The Secure Retirement paper has some great recommendations - the link is here for anyone interested to read: https://www.pacificpsdi.org/assets/Uploads/A-Secure-Retirement2.pdf

Thanks for this blog on the critical subject of Pacific women's financial security in old age. There are a number of developments on retirement funds' efforts to increase women's access to retirement funds, including those that operate in the informal economy, that aren't referenced in this blog. The report 'A Secure Retirement: levelling the playing field for Pacific women' analyses the regulatory and organisational barriers for women. The recommendations of this report are being taken forward by the Pacific Islands Investment Forum who have established a 'women and super' working group. It would be good to acknowledge and support the work of these retirement funds to increase women's access and there are some great examples in Solomon Islands and PNG to draw on.

Personally I am not in favor of selective basic income over universal basic income but it is a start and policies can become more encompassing as time goes on. The fundamental idea should be that everyone should be afforded a life of dignity regardless of circumstances.

For the record the Hon Taboi Awi Yoto was returned as the Governor of Western province in the 2022 election. What he speaks of is not a flaw in the people but rather the disconnect between the implied values of the Westminster system and Papua New Guinea culture. Traditionally a leader was perceived to be a “father” to those he led. The decision maker, allocator of land and person who could be relied upon to protect the best interests of the clan from external threats. This system has persisted for millennia. In 2023 a member of parliament is assumed to represent and speak for thousands of people from multiple communities and clans at district or provincial level. People he or she has no ties to in a traditional sense. However, from the perspective of many rural people a member of parliament is still judged by how they fit into the traditional “fatherly” parent role. It may have been assumed by the founding fathers of the new nation state in 1975 that with time and increasing access to education these traditional values would be replaced by an understanding of how modern government and governance is expected to work. Nearly half a century later this has not been the case. Something in the order of eight of every ten people in Papua New Guinea lives in a rural community on the land their ancestors did. Less than half have access to a functional health facility and their children generally do not go to school beyond grade 3. In reality there has been little or no impetus for the envisioned change. And nor should there have been. Modernisation in “western” sense has had a corrosive effect upon traditional communities. It has undermined local authority and driven a decline in law and order. Simply put, the system of leadership inherited at independence has emasculated community leadership and replaced it with nothing. There is a very real void between the last levels of public service and the people they are tasked to serve. The challenge as I see it is for the inherited Westminster style of leadership to reconnect in a meaningful way to traditional community settings. Not superficially by way of handouts but through greater empowerment at the grass roots level. Empowerment to participate in and own the outcomes for the education, health and law order community building services they desire. This presupposes that the current pork barrelling of every member of parliament with an wasteful annual slush fund that sets them up for precisely the demands of which Mr Yoto complains be scrapped and the funds reallocated to accountable public service agencies that are in turn held accountable by those they are supposed to serve for the results they achieve. In effect return power for development to the clan level, make communities partners in the changes they desire and allow their traditional leaders to remain accountable to their own people for local outcomes, as they have been for millennia.

This trend is getting out of hand. Unless the government do something about the perceptions the people have about the voted politicians, there is a growing awareness that politicians must give the voters some sort of material need in order to vote them back into parliament.