Comments

Hi Terence, Enjoyed your informative article. The elephant in the room with regards to aid flows (which are vital as ever) is geo-politics and the role of China. During the midst of the current COVID-19 crisis, China has come to Fiji's aid providing support to its military with 47 vehicles and to the Ministry of Health with PPE and other equipment. I note that Australia is providing $15 million as budgetary support to Fiji.

Ryan, Try this link: https://devpolicy.org/in-asia-not-all-homes-are-safe-we-need-an-urgent-shift-in-thinking-20200408/

We are in the middle of a pandemic and governments across the world have imposed lockdowns, closing down offices and businesses. Do you think a moment like this can have a gender dimension? What do you think the impact of the pandemic could be on women?

Thank you for this interesting post. On the matter of the LNG royalty payments that you mentioned, have these been further delayed by the current State of Emergency? Did the meeting scheduled in Kiunga in the week commencing Monday 16 March go ahead? Thank you again, Amanda

Thanks Luke, That's a really interesting comment and question. I've been thinking over potential counter-arguments this morning, but none are that persuasive. I'm not sure it would be a certain winner, but I'd be in favour of giving it a try. Thanks again. Terence

Thank you so much for this timely update to the situation for the RSE workers

Great blog, Terence. On the last point, would you recommend any other ways to assist NGOs, eg. increasing the tax deduction that individuals receive for donations?

The fear-paranoia is crippling our people based on the misinformation floating in the public space. The loss of lives (families) in Solomon Islands would not have happened if correct information is relayed to the people concerned. Presuming no lack of grounded evidence available to qualify and justify the decision to move the people from one location to another location because of the fear of COVID-19, leaders in-charge must demonstrate the need to rely on available evidence to make correct decisions in order to allay fears and create confidence amongst the populace on approaches which are simple to them to protect themselves. What is happening in Papua New Guinea is that strong leadership sets the pace on making sure that correct information is released to the public domain. In addition, there is a massive Christian revival uprising in the country, with citizens praying to God for our safety knowing that we do not have the necessary equipment to health officers or the money to help our people - only God can help us and He will certainly deliver us from this plague.

Hi Lawrence, apologies for a very late reply. <a href="https://pngnri.org/images/Publications/Issues_Paper_No_31_Generating_internal_revenues_and_employment_from_the_tuna_industry_for_Bougainville_Michael_Kabuni.pdf?fbclid=IwAR21TLluGt8ytylV-3BRt58tiReFDy5XbOI5wYMCPxLOmGC3_ht2Pk6p3Ws" rel="nofollow ugc">Here</a> is an article I wrote on Bougainville. It was published by the National Research Institute. It’s on generating revenue internally.

Hi James, thank you for your comment. My sense is that you're right and that in many countries domestic revenue to health has also fallen (or at least failed to keep up with need). It would be great to see some hard data on it though. I agree that, once the crisis is over, whenever that will be, it would be excellent if it served as a catalyst for new discussions on just what aid's focus should be. Thanks again for your comment. Terence

This is an excellent analysis. It would be interesting to see the health budgeting issue explored more deeply. Would it be possible to track net health spending in the region (ie not only aid money)? I suspect that the trend line would be much the same and such would be an indictment of both donors and recipient governments. We may be in for a revival of some very familiar old discussions about the composition of aid portfolios and national budgets.

This is an excellent summation of the issue. Having myself been involved in the Pacific for 30 years, I rarely comment about such issues since it seems such a waste of time. Aid is absorbed into the sponge-like clutches of governments and the hopelessly bureaucratic civil service and public sector, with the effect that the community at large receives no tangible impact. Why is it that the aid agencies continue to seek targets through this amoeba of the public sector? Why do they so rarely engage with the private sector? There are so many projects, so many individuals with small businesses which are thwarted in their ambitions by the local development banks, and by the commercial banks whose parameters seem to be governed by a set of criteria that have nothing to do with risk and reward but more to do with favouritism and risk aversion. There is an assumption that entrepreneurs in these islands are incapable of running a venture to profit and that the civil servants are the source of wisdom. Far from it and so what? If one project comes off in the long term it pays for four that fail. Get out there and engage with the private sector, deal directly with each entrepreneur with ideas and choose the ones with merit. But of course you will say that you are bound to deal with Government and they determine how funds are dispersed. And that’s the problem and that’s why aid rarely benefits. The life style of rural communities in these island countries is as poor as it has ever been, in fact the standards have fallen behind world benchmarks. This is a poor indictment for aid agencies in Australia and New Zealand, ADB etc., and the solution is indeed radical. But until this is recognised the taxpayers money is down the drain, as the author clearly understands.