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Dr. Bal has woven this article together very well, highlighting a critical reality: Pacific Island countries are too often positioned as mere recipients of decisions made elsewhere, with little choice but to implement or follow. The ICJ has helped shift this perspective, demonstrating that change can begin with us, by us, and for the world. As he stated, “The advisory opinion must now become a tool for national and regional action.” This offers hope to many least developed and most vulnerable countries, empowering them to use legal instruments to ensure that high-emission countries are held accountable and act within the framework of the climate change verdict delivered by the world’s highest court.

The chaps hamming it up in the picture are all smiles for the camera. Dressed more appropriately for a meeting in Port Moresby they would present a very difference picture. I don’t know any of them but I am prepared to bet that individually they are decent blokes. The sad thing is that after five decades of failed service delivery coupled with a complete lack of participation in local activities that should have constituted nation building, they have reverted to the pre independence rule of law only this time with guns. In the first decade, maybe decade and a half after independence this sort of behaviour was at a much lower level, the exception rather than the rule and restricted to only a few places in PNG as people placed a great deal of faith in their elected leaders to deliver. But by the late 1980s the signs that community patience with unfulfilled promises was wearing thin was apparent. In my view the window closed in much of the highlands by the mid to late 1990s. Today youth in some of the most peaceful locations imaginable such as Milne Bay province have given up and taken the law into their own hands with a recent purge by the police resulting in the deaths of many young men. This action has left many in the affected communities seething, their trust in government gone. The writing was on the wall three plus decades ago but the warnings were not heeded by local government or partners focused upon strengthening systems that were alien and antithetical to PNG culture. The voices of the “common person” were simply ignored. Big resource developers who hid behind the letter of the law only exacerbated an already fragile situation. Bougainville needs no introduction but it is not alone. If we truly believe in the concept of a stable and peaceful Pacific family, then I would urge our own leaders to start listening to more family members. There is on old and wise saying in PNG. There are some big trees in the forest and lots of smaller ones. You have only spoken to the big ones. You need to speak to all of them.

It’s really encouraging to see a renewed commitment to transparency in our aid program, the delivery of aid will undoubtedly be better for it. When accessing the new portal again in light of DevPol’s audit being released I was also really pleased to see that the second release has included upgraded accessibility across the whole. Even on mobile I could toggle a widget. This is so important when creating and sharing data, a great demonstration of the level of commitment of the DFAT project staff involved.

Having said that the story then becomes unimaginably complex. The one thing development partners should have realised by now is that 118 members of parliament cannot adequately represent 850 language groups and thousands of clans each with its own land and unique story - each essentially an independent nation. Nor do provincial or local level government representatives make a jot of difference in this reality. Nation building in such a complex environment has to be a two way street that recognises the traditional power structures in communities. Sadly that has not been the case. Until communities have agency over their own futures in an equal partnership with the State, very little is likely to change.

I am helping two Afghan widows and their children find immigration possibilities. They both have relatives in Australia. Their husbands were pilots trained by NATO allies for the Afhgan Air Force, and were given asylum in the U.S. Their husbands were working to get their commercial pilot licenses when they died in a tragic small plane crash. The widows were only days and weeks from final approval to immigrate to the USA. Then Pres. Trump issued his proclamation stopping all immigration cases.. One widow and daughter are in CAS, a US. military base in Doha from which they may be returned to Afghanistan to forced marriage, rape and a life without education for women and girls while the other widow who has three children is in Quetta, Pakistan where the Pakistani police are deporting Afghans back to Afghanistan. They are easily identified as wives of the Afghan pilots who stole planes and flew themselves to safety the day of the final American flight from Kabul. It is urgent that I help them get to safety.

Last paragraph sums it up. The shortage of diesel excuse has been used since Moses was a boy. These events took place 100km from a huge natural gas extraction plant operated by ExxonMobil, Santos, TotalEnergies, and JX Nippon. There is not a shortage of resources to fund human capital development. There is a shortage of will.

So good to read a positive success story. Congratulations to you all for your vision and commitment.

Mauri Tiaon, and thank you for the shout-out! We're really excited to see such encouraging data emerging. The work done by our SPU team in collaboration with MFED to deliver social protection support mostly via cash across 21 islands is astronomical, so it really buoys us to see positive results. Appreciate your encouraging words! Tekeraoi 🙂

Thank you Siulai! Glad you enjoyed the article and "Tiabo!" (See you again)

Thank you, Pak Dwi. You’re right, in Kupang, culture plays a huge role in shaping this reality. Strong kinship bonds, the habit of returning favours, and the influence of church communities all create big expectations for public officials to share what they have. Winning such a position brings not just prestige, but also a deep sense of responsibility to help extended family, friends, and church networks. Saying no can damage relationships or even political chances, yet saying yes often stretches finances to the limit. Here I argue that generosity and reciprocity can blur the line between genuine service and bending the rules.

Exxon Mobil is illegally operating in PNG to date. All the foreign Exxon Mobil employees are all considered illegals living and working in png. In America where Exxon Mobil is from, Trump is chasing and deporting every illegal immigrants that include anyone even with minor bad immigration records from working and living in the US. That same measure can be applied in png and therefore the entire Exxon Mobil operations is illegal. anyone here can argue that Exxon Mobil was given a green light by the png government of that time to operate but regardless, the bottom line issue here is that the constitution and the rule of law was broken and that make Exxon Mobil’s entry into the country was illegal. The executive branch of the government can not bend the law. The rule of law and the constitution is absolute. I am sure living in foreign country no matter how long you have lived there, if you have illegally entered the country you live or if you have breached the immigration law of that land your visa can be revoked. Exxon Mobil is exactly guilty of that

Hi, I am a student and deeply relate to this issue. I was researching the ban in Pakistan for girls' education for a school project and found this article helpful.