Comments

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.

The much talked about decentralisation of developments must be revisited. It is very clear that the subsistence economy of Solomon Islands could be regarded as the means of sustaining the biggest population density of the country without much difficulty. Just think of this, people move back into villages without government supply of food, much less with financial assistance as many were either laid-off or on half payment of wages and salaries. Therefore it is time that the decentralisation of developments be at the forefront for planning into the future.

Well made insight comments Dr. T. The British have established good landmarks fo Solomon Islands by establishing Auki, Gizo, Lata, Buala as centers for village development. At our 10th anniverary that mindset was still there but thereafter we have gone our own ways only ti create for ourselves this problem. Last week Monday I went to KiraKira only to find with much surprise the once British rural headquarter is now filled with overgrown bushes. We have shifted our devolution policies to centralization and have our qualified human resources stacked together in Honiara leaving the provinces struggling on their own to look after their people. We are yet to see and have a Prime Minister who was born from a village in Solomon Islands to better understand our people, villages and provincial needs.

Hullo Sonya Congratulation and it's very Inspiring. God Bless

According to the latest report of Business Insider in which they based their data in World Health Organization (WHO), updated as of today that the virus has killed more than 95,000 people and infected globally over 1,500,000.* This pandemic is getting worse and people in the government seemingly not doing enough for the welfare of its people. The fact is, we’re already in the middle of one of the most severe health crises since the Spanish Flu and healthcare systems in most countries simply can’t handle the load anymore due to overwhelming number of cases infected and hospitals are understaffed and even lack of medical supplies. If a worst case is really have to happen. Experts are advising that people must learn to be more “medically self reliant“ and prepare something more... https://cheaplink20com.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/covid-19-prepper-how-to-prepare/

I am pretty much concerned which was the scenerio, all played out in the regional processing centre here in manus. The partnership or a form of bileteral motion between the hosting Provincial Government and the development package was never present. Local and private companies took the outside context to bid or be sub contracted. Sadly manus government was left in blank with damaging effect to clean-up and pursue second handed outcome that was left behind after closure.