Comments

Thank you very much for your comments, Tim. I agree that it is important to take systemic approach to address the "root causes" of underperformance in the sector. That's is exactly the approach that the GREAT program is taking. The purpose of the article is to critique the approach to supporting only medium and large businesses and excluding micro and small businesses, which also have great potential for creating jobs and providing better incomes for the poor. As such, we did not mention other partnerships that the GREAT program is doing with NGOs and government agencies to address the issues as you mentioned. FYI, there are 50 partnerships under the GREAT progamme.

Thanks Writers (Chris), Bennie, Debbie, Charles & Priscilla). Firstly, this website is second to none from the perspective of community development. It's very helpful and contains invaluable information for community development workers and associates. The information contained on the site are easily accessible, easy to read and understand, and also practically usable. The piece of writing reading the training at Aiyura is insightful and great! For organizations such as the CIC, who directly works with farmer groups, the Aiyura training was very useful for the extension staff: many thanks to Chris and team CARE for delivering this important training. Confirm with your report that the training really filled in a missing gap between the extension officers normal way of extension (innovation driven) and the farmers (who have specific needs which are often overlooked); hence the gap. In the goings forwards of the CIC, especially in extension and training, under its (CIC) new strategic and business plans (2020 - 2030), obviously the new tools of CDW will be used. Looking forward to getting for updates and possibly make contributions. Especially to Chris, thanks for committing your life for community development in PNG.

I agree that a focus on direct engagement with inclusive businesses may leave others behind - especially SMEs that comprise large segments of the economies we work in, and where many of the poorest are active as suppliers, laborers and customers. However I do not think that a simple switch to working with SMEs provides an efficient, viable, and scalable solution. The example of GREAT more or less proves this: an AUD 34m program that has supported 17 of Vietnam's approximately half a million SMEs does not present a strong case. Rather, the answer lies in a more systemic approach that addresses underlying causes of underperformance in sectors in which SMEs are prevalent - be they policy or weaknesses in supporting functions and services such as finance, R&D, and adopting industry standards etc.

Thank you for this insightful and informative blog post. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about Ms Nahau Rooney, her achievements and her legacy. I wish to express my sincere, warm wishes to her many family members, including our ANU colleague Michelle, at this difficult time. Thank you again to the two authors for this valuable and important piece. Amanda

In recent years, thanks to ODE, program evaluations have regularly been published online (i.e. those commissioned by program areas and posts). For me personally that has meant having a clutch of recent evaluations published online having had none published by the Australian government since 1999! I now wonder if this commitment to publish will evaporate. Indeed I wonder about the fate of program evaluations more generally given that it was ODE that seemed to be able to apply effective pressure on program areas and posts to commission a minimum number of evaluations each year. Will we ever see another annual evaluation plan?

Back in 2013 I attended a seminar in which the Secretary of the Dept of Finance praised ODE as being the best evaluation unit in any Commonwealth department. Abolishing ODE also seems inconsistent with the recommendations of the APS (Thodey) review on the need to strengthen the evaluation function in Commonwealth departments. These recommendations were supported by the Government in their response to the review when they stated “we will keep focussed on what works - building the capacity of the APS to evaluate how policies and programs are going and embedding evaluation into everyday practice in the APS”.

Thanks Stephen. A good summary, and a sad commentary.

Thank you Stephen for an accurate reflection on this sorry state of affairs

Of relevance to this issue, the following biometric verification news: “Papua New Guinea pilots biometric voter rolls Fingerprint and face biometrics will be used for voter enrollment and electoral roll verification in Papua New Guinea, according to Loop PNG. Voter registration and biometric enrollment for Kupiano Ward 5’s local level government by-election will be conducted by the PNG Electoral Commission. Local government documents will subtract deceased voters and add those who have turned 18 in the ward to the eligibility list. PNG Electoral Commission Acting Deputy Commissioner Simon Sinai announced the pilot will take place from October 3 to 7, 2020. He also said the government agencies responsible for the project can overcome the challenges it will entail be working together.” Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202009/innovatrics-biometrics-remove-200000-ineligible-voters-from-electoral-rolls-in-guinea

Critical issue and important to raise it. I would be interested to know if the data was sex disaggregated and if there was any gender analysis, including links to the increasing failure of boys in education.

I tend to agree with this assessment. At a time when the ADB, IADB, WB, and even still DFID (FCDO now, specifically their Research and Evidence division) have strong and getting stronger internal research and impact evaluation units (and strong academic linkages and external partnerships in this regard, doing proper research), it has hard to not see this as a big backwards step and yet another potential boon for the consulting industry. Unfortunate, really, since we were already a bit of a laggard in many respects.

Well said!