Comments

Wonderful piece Akito, it is great to have your perspective on the blog. I was very fortunate to visit some rural villages in Lautem during my brief time working in Timor-Leste, and was so impressed at how the community would mobilise to collaborate on projects like WASH and volunteer-run preschool classes in the absence of government services. With more investment and basic access to infrastructure these communities would thrive. The stories of the long walks villagers would take to access markets or markets, or even for mobile phone reception (which may have improved now), showed resilience and determination.

Thanks for sharing your story Akito. This was lovely to read and it makes me miss Timor. Let's hope the new Government can come up with development priorities that will provide more benefit to the Timorese people

A very interesting article, which reflects the experience of many of my Timorese friends and/or their families. One of the fascinating things about Timor-Leste is to observe the interplay of independence on the one hand, and globalisation/modernisation on the other.

Fantastic article Akito! Best wishes from Australia.

Maun Akito, thanks for sharing your story. In your home town, if you have a piece of land, plant trees that have economic value, it is huge investment to the next 20 years. This is how we will have to end poverty (SDG 15: Life on land). It is time to optimise land use for good life. Timor-Leste is a blessed land.

This is interesting to get an overall perspective of the current progress in responding to Harold. But slow response compared to Pam reported does not ring true to my experience. I was in NW Tanna for Pam and S Santo for Harold. Shelter kits arrived sooner in Santo after Harrold than they did after Pam in my part of Tanna. Food took about the same amount of time. It's just always slow and frustrating. The big difference in my experience is that Harrold feels more calm and controlled and fair, whereas with Pam on Tanna aid organisations were jumping over each other to get a slice of the pie, which led to rampant manipulation of the organisations.

Thank you for this interesting and thought-provoking blog post. Further stories and experiences of Digicel PNG customers can be found in anthropologist Robert Foster’s blog post here: https://limn.it/customer-care/ Thanks again, Amanda 🙂

Thank you Paul for putting real numbers and confirming my thoughts. I knew Simon was the best Treasury Secretary of our time but didn't have numbers to justify my conclusion. He truly had the country's interest at heart. May he rest in eternal peace.

Where income tax is paid, there is demand for service.

Thank you Paul, and well said. I believe all of us who worked for Simon in the PNG Treasury during ECP, in my case in 2006 and 2007, came to respect him greatly as Secretary and as a person. He will indeed be missed.

I would not describe Australia's response as positive. I think it has been disappointing overall and demonstrates that a huge opportunity to shift gears on the Pacific step up may well be squandered. An expert group chaired by Ann Sherry is already discussing relevant issues as between New Zealand and Australia and the SG of the Pacific Islands Forum has said that she would welcome an invitation to Pacific stakeholders to be part of these discussions. Now. So that relevant information can be shared and so that this is addressed as something that is a shared challenge in which we are all working together for the greater good - like a "family" if you will. This from the AHC in Fiji (as reported by RNZ Pacific May 20th) is extremely disappointing or it should be. "Our public health people will have to establish the protocols and procedures to allow travel to take place, but I think the hard work would take place between Australia and New Zealand ... And once that work is done, it will be very easily applied to Fiji." If there is a table then Pacific island states who have voiced an interest (and not just Fiji) should have seats at it.

thanks Richard we need to do as much as possible to support our pacific neighbours