Comments

Erudite as always, Gordon, you matched him parry for parry. Thanks for reminding us of James’ humanity in action. Shocked and unbelievably sad this week.

Seems like the participants in the market have no knowledge of the 30 by 30 Actions (https://www.ccda.gov.pg/?q=news/papua-new-guineas-sustainable-development-goal-13-roadmap-30-actions-2030). Secular or scientific knowledge about climate change is clouded by religious views, not only in PNG but in the region as well.

Also worth mentioning is the technical assistance for the conduct of voter registration and elections which Timor-Leste has given to Guinea-Bissau - which involved deploying for a few months some of the best experts from STAE (and, I think, CNE), who really know what they are doing. An extremely rare example of South-South assistance in the electoral field.

Thanks Elisa. Should Timor-Leste ever feel like donating to the Development Policy Centre you have my email address.

This is very true and heart breaking for my very own home province. It is due to the mismanagement of funds from the provincial level to the village level as a results the hinterlands of the province has not developed. The fact is that the very own capital town of the province is still in the old and days infrastructural version where none of the new building had being erected by the current MPs since 45 years of Independence. So it is about time to rebuild the Province by the new young elites leaders of the province.

Hi Steve, Good article, but I am going to slightly disagree (what's new?). I find it extremely difficult to believe that only half of the ADB projects are failures -- they must be using a very favorable definition of success. If you have a link, I would like to see an audit giving descriptions of the various projects and how they were determined to be failures or successes. Also, in my opinion, the biggest problem is not capacity of these Pacific countries, but corruption -- which the ADB, World Bank, IMF, and a myriad of donors seem to purposely ignore. Finally, it would be interesting to learn the reason that the ADB gives some $2B annually to China which then spends an estimated $200M annually on building up its military and territory expansion which negatively affects smaller countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Again, thanks for the article.

Thank you Michael for the support and Canberra DevPolicyBlog for published this article. Hope this information will be valuable to others. Than you Elisa

Very interesting, thanks. A couple of questions. Were you able to quantify (or even estimate) the amounts invested in the different enterprise areas? Also under transport, I assume this is mainly buying a minivan and running a minibus service. Do you know how much income is generated from these activities or is it just a way to cover vehicle maintenance and running costs? Anecdotally my understanding is very much the second, although this may just be PV.

As with HECS in Australia, if the HELP program operates in PNG it will be yet another form of inter-generational wealth transfer. A far more important reform for tertiary education in PNG would be the political recognition that for primary and secondary education to reach any worthwhile standard, teachers need to be university educated according to international criteria. Ignore World Bank ideologues and local leaders who have since the 1980s consistently downplayed the relative and absolute importance of tertiary education.

While acknowledging the great and enormous aid assistance it gives to PNG, in my humble view, how Australia defines effective may not necessary mean the same as is in the eyes of the citizens, as I am grappling with the hard reality of PNG continuing to depend on aid from outside, year in year out, towards its "development" and continue to be troubled by the question of, when can PNG really break free from its dependence on Aid? Isnt aid supposed to make PNG independent and self-reliant? Isnt aid suppose to be a bridging assistance within a specific time period to assist the country and its citizens gain knowledge, skills and expertise or provide an initial funding support towards a specific area of need, on which to build on to eventually take charge and responsibility, to be self reliant and develop into the future? It does not seem aid assistance to our development has been progressive, rather we have become dependent on aid to view and understand the assistance practice as standard development culture and norm? I think there is a need to better define what is meant by effective aid support by trying to understand it from the perspective of the PNG citizens rather than from an Australian perspective?!

After 45 years of political independence, PNG must seriously reform its electoral system. This report and many other similar reports have clearly identified alarming flaws in the PNG voting system. It must now be a serious cause for concern among all Papua New Guineans because voting genuine and honest political leaders in the next election going forward, through a safe and robust electoral process will ensure the right caliber of leaders are voted into Parliament. Over the last 45 years, little has been achieved through socioeconomic and political independence while in the development space, the country has been lagging behind in all sectors. PNG cannot continue to regress while other small developing economies progress forward with good political leadership.

Bula Sadhana Thanks for your kind comments and good to hear from you. But it's sad that Fiji's situation so differs from the positive things we are seeing elsewhere in the region. Stay safe and well!