Comments

The outlook for societal trends in Papua New Guinea is bumpy at best. The combined headwinds of a youth bulge approaching its peak, few formal sector employment opportunities and weak service delivery will be difficult to overcome. The government will need to redouble its efforts to implement existing policies and develop new ones that will ensure growing opportunities for Papua New Guineans.

What an excellent summary of the issues. What the federated states of Micronesia did not explain in their statement, is their conflict of interest, being in a much deeper security relationship with the US with their compact of Free Association by which the US guarantees their security.

Well written. However, the criminal negligence of rulers to save their country from such down sliding speedily must be highlighted. Generally corruption and corrupt practices of rulers ruin the country. Pakistan is also in trouble due to its bad economy. A comparison between both countries may be made for opening eyes.

This is a very motivational piece. Very encouraging. If all Papua New Guineans can think and act that way. PNG would now be already the richest Black nation.

It's good to think business and talk SME as it is the way forward.

An incredibly well written article which sums up almost everything that took place.

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We all witness the luxurious lifestyle of many politicians and it's our guess that they robbed public funds... But it's not proven so it cannot be quoted in a professional writeup... Overall a comprehensive analysis of what happened to Sri Lanka....

Absolutely right. The place was ransacked by Rajapakse’s and the money was corruptly siphoned out of the country until it broke its back. These idiots thought the money supply was unlimited

This is a good exposition of a difficult story. Essentially bad governance and lack of accountability is the source of the problem. These problems did not start in this century. They predates at least to 1970's when the democratic system started its reform process that transferred power to an Executive presidency and took away instruments of public accountability and scrutiny. This followed a significant brain drain and severe lack of absorptive capacity at present, that has led to excessive mismanagement to the extent that managers themselves do not consider that there is a problem. I fully agree with the comment "The pandemic can be seen as the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ rather than the cause of Sri Lanka’s woes". The Pandemic just exposed underlying structural weaknesses that remained unaddressed over several decades. I cannot think of any quick fixes unless effective democracy can be restored and accountability brought to bear. That is a long bow. Hopefully, the current sad state may pave way to some welcome changes. It is unconceivable that it can get much worse.

Illegal money transfer is a major problem mainly in developing countries. UN estimates the amount of money transferred from African countries is 86 billion USD per year. The corruption index is almost same for all developing countries. The writer's analysis is well balanced view of what happened since 1977 when the economy was opened and successive governments wanted to balance the budget using foreign loans and aids without improving the export market and local industries.

I would like to receive regular post from the Development Policy Center on this. I would really like the PNG Govt to seriously look deeply into these before rushing into signing MOU’s with the Australian Govt.