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Pround of you maun Nelio👌💪

Thanks Kate. Hopefully putting it up on the Development Policy blog is a good first step. We'll see where it goes from there.

Thanks for your comments Uday. I've just downloaded the NITI policy paper and will pursue with interest. The context is certainly different from that prevailing in Australia (the issue here tends to be more about the lack of labour than the lack of money), although as you point out the ethical challenges stemming from the invisible nature of much agricultural work are fairly universal.

Disturbing story on your friend being asked to leave food at the door without any acknowledgement for the service. I strongly endorse the suggestions for recognition of the service our seasonal workers provide to the community. The least Australia can do is ensure that the workers are paid and looked after well. Any recognition over and above that would be icing on the cake.

I can confidently and safely say that the PNG National Standards for Community Development Workers has enhanced and increased the knowledge and skills of ordinary CDW and fine-tuned them into finished products as indicated by the level of confidence demonstrated during training facilitation and project initiation, planning and implementation. The most important thing here is to see change in people (beneficiaries) which we work with through application of these skills and knowledge gained. Apart from introducing Oil Search Foundation to PNG National Standard for CDW, I have also incorporated and established my own Community Based Organisation under the name Agarabi Rural Development Association and managed to develop my community through the funds secured from UNDP, USAID, and Oil Search Foundation and many more still forthcoming! I'd like to take this time to thank and appreciate Chris Gard, Rebecca Robinson and others for your efforts in establishing PNGNSCDW! The resources are awesome and mostly importantly it is PNG local content/context. I would encourage others who are working as development practitioners to be part and parcel of this important organisation and learn the skills and knowledge required to mould and shape you to become professional CDW!

Nice article! You are right, the "people who work out of sight and out of mind are more vulnerable". The farmers are one such group. It might be interesting for you to look at the recent policies by Indian Government that aims to double the income of farmers. How these claims are working?

Great post Michael. Can you get this in front of some policy makers?

What a wonderful post Gordon. You’ve raised so many of the things we think about as evaluators - not least of which is how do we cut through the ‘narrative’ that gets created around a program in a way that can bring meaningful change. You’ve raised a really interesting question about whether there is something unique about law and justice programs that make this more difficult. I’m going to give that a bit more thought, and come back to you with some reflections soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d point in you in the direction of the mid-term review of for the Tonga Police Development Programme. The report is less brisk than the one I did for the Bougainville Community Policing Programme, but it resulted in some tangible changes to the programme (woohoo!). And, full kudos to MFAT for publishing these reports on their website. I think that kind of transparency is important, and doesn’t negate the confidential conversations and information that can be provided to donors/programme partners as part of an evaluation process. Also, I think of evaluations as a process, where how we do them matters as much as (in some cases more than) what we write in the report. I find this thought also helps with the drudgery of report writing 🙂

Some SWP agents find it difficult to send workers to Australia cause most of the big SWP agents don't give chance to small agents. Long list of applications are waiting in vain because the agent can't secure any contract. Some of the farmers in Australia are too greedy they won't engage with new SWP agent from Vanuatu. Very sad indeed.

Thanks Marion, I agree, data cannot tell us the full story. Thanks for sharing your on the ground experiences from the Western Pacific. It doesn't totally surprise me that a Swap struggled in PNG, given the challenging governance context. Similarly, it doesn't surprise me that elites lobbied for the type of aid most likely to benefit them and their families (scholarships). In Solomons, I agree the education Swap was working pretty well, and that even so there must have been scope to recalibrate it -- this would be good adaptive aid in practice. Like you, I'm agnostic on sector. (Whether we focus our aid on education, governance, economic development etc, should be a function of what works and what's needed, not some particular prior.) That said, there is a clear need for education support in many countries we work in, and -- within the education sector -- no evidence whatsoever that scholarships bring the best development bang for their buck. I also agree we shouldn't fragment aid unduly across countries, projects or sectors. This isn't good practice. I have just one -- data related -- quibble though. In the Pacific we're not a small donor: we're the second largest. Which places a particular onus on us to get it right. Thanks again for your comment. As always, great to hear your perspective. Terence

Thanks Yvonne, Some of that may be outside the hands of the aid programme of course, but I definitely agree any move back to primary education needs to be based on the approaches most likely to work in partner countries. Terence

Everything were created new including body of human. God created Adam and Eve, God gave them the power of choice or freedom to choose. God never imposed on Adam and Eve to worship him. Throughout history, people’s power of choice or freedom were tremble upon when there was a Church and State Union. Earthly bodies have died on the hands of clergymen and the state apparatus. Our Constitution is Homegrown, drafted by our Forefathers, many of them were former clergymen. They had the power to include PNG as a Christian country but chose to only include “we adopt the Christian Principles” in the Preamble of the Constitution as opposed to “Christianity as State religion”. They made the decision to enshrined the divinely power of Choice as freedom of expression in the Constitution. This must be protected at all costs. This decision to amend the Constitution to officially make PNG a Christian Country is not divine but evil. It’s the idea of certain Evangelical fundamentalist to impose their distorted unbiblical doctrines on the people using the State apparatus and is clearly wrong, very dangerous and evil. People must not take the position of the creator. State and Church must remain separated. State must not make laws on religion or religion must not imposed its fundamental doctrines on the State. This proposed constitutional amendments to the Constitution should not be allowed. There is nothing wrong with the current provisions of the Constitution which clearly separate the Church from the State.