Comments

My thanks to Mr Gregory Bablis for this insightful and thoughtful piece. It is an important reminder of the people who were involved in the Kokoda campaign. It is extraordinary to think how much World War Two impacted upon so many people's lives. I am imagining this man, who was from a place that had only recently had its first contact with the wider world, beyond their immediate trading partners. In such a short space of time, he ended up in Kokoda and later Port Moresby. What must he have thought of the guns, the vehicles, the large buildings of the port town and so on? It's amazing really. Mr Bablis, did Late Mr Kumanyal reflect upon these experiences during his interview? What were some of his first impressions or memories of those times? As I understand it, and as you state in this piece, the carriers who became known as 'fuzzy wuzzy angels' have never been given anything apart from medals post-war. By comparison, these days, are retired PNG army soldiers entitled to a pension or other benefits? And if so, do they receive them? Thanks again for this thought-provoking piece and the photographs.

Hello Peter. Thank you for your interest! There are actually interesting development, especially about the recent Yi relocation. You can find more details in this article: https://www.thinkchina.sg/lifting-poorest-poor-out-poverty-sichuan-does-poverty-alleviation-mean-uprooting-people-their-homes There are quite a few assistance program including student sponsoring program. If you are still interested, I am happy to help connect!

hi, Charlotte, most respectfully, i have seen your blog, and have gotten full attention to the deficiency of RSE in seasonal work visa in NZ. can u take my assignment in this regard for RSE workers in your county to attribution. kindly send me your response from your side forthwith ongoing remarks. waiting for your next response in this query . Best of luck Charlotte your sincerity.

You hit the nail on the head, agreed much.

Hi HuiYuan, My name is Peter Liu - living in Melbourne- interested to know how to assist and understand the situation in there.

An excellent and timely article. When 85% of people live rurally and beyond the reach of government services, it is logically sound to focus greater effort and resources at local levels. Congratulations to the team.

I appreciated your efforts on how to address the Climate change back in the community especially in the remote parts of the country. climate change talks was only effective in urban areas by government but forget rural people. Please could you go into the remote places and speaks to our people silently suffering?

Thanks, Steve, for this article. I've been thinking a lot about this over the last two decades. While there are inherent constraints in capacity in the Pacific (related to narrow economic base, remoteness, smallness and out-migration), there is a LOT of room for development partners to do things better. The first of these is to think long-term- and I mean in decades- long enough to see generational shifts. This flows into long-term holistic planning with the country, decades-long programs, and into investing in real, long-term relationships between bank staff, advisors and people in-country. Pacific Islanders have been forced to examine their worldviews and see things differently in dealing with colonisers and development agencies. It is incumbent upon development agencies to examine their worldviews and whether imposed solutions are at all appropriate. This then becomes about a deeper level of dialogue and creativity that is not often apparent in development projects.

I just found some spare time to read these two blogs. I do agree that the Global Fund might not be the most "easy" donor when it comes to data collection and indicator reporting. However, I am opening a debate on the potential cleanup of data collected-what are the things we can potentially remove from the current data sets? What are the domestic needs in terms of data and then the ones that are donor driven? How to align? maybe a valid discussion as we might enter into malaria elimination investment soon and we will need to add elimination specific indicators:-) Thanks to everyone supporting this amazing country!

K2.573 billion for SIP fuding in 2020 National Budget as mentioned in the blog. Data for actual amount given to each province and district annually is with relevant government agencies, such as the DIRD and Department of Finance. However, the complete data for that is not easily made available to the public.

What is the actual amount given to each Province this year under the DSIP funds?

Conduct a referendum again. This time, it must be a genuine "Act of Free Choice.". Let only indigenous West Papuans vote. This could be conducted by UN (keep Indonesian Military & West Papuan fighters out of it as much as possible). Let the West Papuans vote freely.