Comments

Thanks so much Holly for your future looking and positive comments. It would be great to work with you and others to increase engagement with our nation's representatives, their teams and Australians in general to apply systems thinking to these complex problems at home and abroad.

Thank you Jonathan, for your insightful comments. I look forward to the day when farmers and public health specialists work together as co-contributors to a healthy society and preventive medicine activities receive the modest but essential support required.

Thank you Julie, I couldn't agree more with your comments.

Thanks Robyn for highlighting the increased risks of COVID-19 infection to resource-limited settings where the pandemic’s impacts will potentially be devastating. As you so rightly said, women and children are the ones already suffering the most from malnutrition and we must address and mitigate the gendered impact of the COVID-19 infection as an equal emergency during the crisis, while also building resilience through nature regeneration, gender equity and social justice in the long-term.

Revisioning Resourcing and Task Allocation in Light of COVID-19 Managing resources during a time when international travel has largely stopped has no doubt posed challenges for the implementation of development projects everywhere. Many international experts have returned home, new advisers are unable to mobilise and those who remained in-country, may not be able to return home at the end of their inputs. At Aus4Transport, we are experiencing this firsthand and it has the potential to delay the Detailed Design of the Central Highlands Connectivity Transport Project (CHCIP) and the Northern Mountains Province Transport Connectivity Project (NMPTCP) we are currently supporting the Government of Vietnam to implement. Seeing an opportunity to help our consultants address these challenges – where one team has international experts here who are nearing the end of their assignments, or are undertaking intermittent inputs due to changes to project schedules and delays in field consultations – while the other team is unable to mobilise international experts as per their schedule resulting in a different kind of delay – we introduced the two consultant teams to see if there was a way they could work together and help each other out with resourcing needs. We are also looking at innovative ways to allow international experts to work from their home location and provide support to the local field teams in different ways using video and teleconferencing, document sharing and remote workshopping. This has already resulted in one request to substitute the Social Development Specialist nominated for the NMPTP, who is unable to mobilise, with a Social Development Specialist on the CHCIP who is already based in Vietnam and working only intermittently on CHCIP. Thinking outside the square, and revisioning the allocation and use of experts, advisers and other resources is critical in a time like this and allows us to keep things moving while the world comes to a relative stand-still.

Thanks Robyn for so eloquently describing the underlying problems of our health system, which our food systems are a part. When the dust begins to settle from the COVID-19 crisis we will need strong arguments for a review of current health policies and implementing agencies. The balance between a curative medicine and preventive surveillance and response measures has never been equal, yet this crisis highlights very strongly the need for greater understanding of the emergence of pathogens from food systems, their rapid detection and proportionate management responses.

Thanks for the comment, Sarah. But can't developed countries just allow much more immigration than they currently do? Seems easier and less risky than starting from scratch (even from a political standpoint).

Thanks Dan good comment, To sum up my take after reading yours and others' comments. CDFs are almost certainly going to be part of the government's response in Solomons. (Indeed, as Casper suggests, they already are in a transport sense.) There are benefits to this: it's quick, the money actual reaches rural areas, and MPs have a political incentive for it to work, in a way. There are drawbacks too, though: CDF spending has been targeted to MPs' supporters in the past in some/most electorates; also, disbursal of CDF funds to MPs seems to sometimes be politicised (harder at times for the opposition to get). Then there's an unknown: quite a lot of CDF money seems to 'leak' on route from MP to people at the grassroots. Hopefully, this is less of an issue in a crisis. Thanks again for a great comment. Terence

Great blog Terence. On the use of CDFs in Solomons - and referring to James' reference to precedent - in 2015, in the wake of a number of cyclones, disaster relief funds were allocated directly to constituencies. The practice was criticized by the Public Accounts Committee at the time: “[t]he committee was very concerned about the decision to channel funds directly to the constituencies as it could lead to politicization of essential assistance and leave people vulnerable…”. In 2016, the PAC recommended the establishment of a “proper legal frame” for the “administration, control and management of the Disaster Relief Fund.” (These quotes are from PAC reports.) Of course, nothing happened. This is one of the few times where CDFs really shine as a means of quickly getting cash out the door to where it is most needed - in a fashion vastly quicker than the traditional bureaucracy could do I daresay.

Should there be any extension after this 14 days of lockdown, it must be updated ASAP so the citizens are fully aware of the situation.

Thanks for bringing up such an important topic about the intertwining effects of human health, and plant and animal health. It's just so much to follow COVID-19 itself that sometimes we forget to look at the broader, interacting factors, and how support across these different entities will be affected. It would be good if governments can better understand that competing priorities shouldn't be examined in a siloed fashion, but to examine them synergistically to see the larger threats to people's health, agriculture, environment, society, and economy.

Really interesting Owen, thanks. I particularly agree with the values that you have laid out here. For the rest I don't disagree exactly but I do have some concerns about the framing. It seems that the overall presentation of the disaster response actor here is of someone who does things *to* or *for* those affected by the disaster, rather than someone who does things *with* them. And while there certainly is plenty that may need to be done for affected people, it is in fact those people who are the first responders to their own crisis, who are there for the long haul. Many people with these values will emerge from within the affected communities, and a top order responsibility of the disaster worker has to be to recognise them and to facilitate their leadership. One thing I take a very different view on is in your last dot point: "When there is no-one in charge, special people take control, then hand it back to the appropriate people when they appear." This suggests that the earlier status quo is desirable or achievable, and also that those who step forward are not in fact the appropriate people in the long term. And there is also the fact that more than a few people are in fact very reluctant to give up control once they have experienced it! In development more generally (beyond disasters) there is going to be a lot of localisation/decolonisation happening in coming months – the choice of label may depend on whether you work in an INGO or a local organisation, and who is in charge of the process! Whatever the case, 'handing back power' may be the last thing that anyone wants.