Comments

Thanks Ian for this view on the importance of DHS of a country. The importance of DHS becomes valuable if the government and its institutions are able and willing to use the data to guide their country’s development policy and program. Without considering the importance of such country’s information, what has been provided by DHS become no use to the country and it is for mere citing in official documents and for academic purpose. For example, in PNG data provided by NSO were never taken on board as critical information in policy and program formulation by the government and the institutions. The data were merely cited as information for public speeches and for launching projects by politicians to reach general audiences. The politicians themselves do not understand the DHS information. The efforts and resources contributed to produce the DHS becomes waste in the end.

Thanks Stephen and Sherman for this analytical work on DFAT’s AIPs. As an Aid worker in DFAT’s bilateral programs in PNG, I have few comments to offer. AIPs is one of the Aid delivery framework for Australian aid across the globe. However, AIPs is not the only blueprint for successful aid delivery in the recipient nations, there are other factors that also contribute to a success or a failure of an Australian Aid AIPs. In most cases, AIPs provide an obscured framework in the background and not in the front guiding aid delivery. Why AIP? AIPs reflect Australia and DFAT aid delivery framework, but the recipient nation’s development framework is another thing that, in most cases may not be complimented with AIPs. This would affect AIPS program delivery in the recipient nations. Another situation in the recipient nations that may affect AIPs delivery is the political economy trend of the recipient nation. Depending on the recipient nation’s political economy, AIPs could demand more resources than Australia willing to provide in aid. For example, in your two graphs above; PNG last had an AIP in 2018 (graph 1) and PNG AIP performance level (graph 2) was low at 27 %. This could not only due to the absence of an AIP but could be due to the local political economy situation of the country as well.

Thank you Raphael Yanka for the issue written. It's a good piece of writing. Looking at the issue and some of the strategic measures used to solving it, especially in the Nations Capital - Port Moresby.They all fell short or there were loopholes. The way I see it, the policies introduced to addressing the issue concentrated only on NCD which is the main market where demand is high and money supply in population per capita is high. Thus ,betel-nut becomes an inelastic good. However, the strategic policies have not touched the suppliers or growers. The NCD through the NEC might be able to push through to have betel- nut producing provinces to; - strategically design marketing of betel-nut by controlling supply. - Bringing awareness to the producers on the negative effects of betel-nut in NCD. (Quick income I know will be a motivation to disobeying,but will eventually sink in) - Awareness on marketing other cash crops that has health benefits other then betel-nut. Strengthen market for those cash crops. Have experts teach techniques in producing those cash crops in good supply to meet market demand. There might be more to what's mentioned above. But, the basic idea is, if the policies to addressing the issue in NCD didn't workout. Try another stakeholder and that is the growers or producers.

I want to know more about the informal Economy law

Great piece guys!

Hi Emmanuel, thank you for your comment. As Maho Laveil and I wrote in an earlier post the average woman candidate seems to have done slightly better in 2017 than in 2012, which hopefully means voters' confidence hasn't been withered too much. You can see our analysis here: https://devpolicy.org/are-women-making-progress-in-elections-in-png-20190809/ Thank you for engaging with the post. Terence

Performance is crucial for public figures. But male politicians don't face the same level of scrutiny based on their gender because it is the norm and they are the overwhelming majority. With so few female candidates being successful in elections they face a greater degree of scrutiny and attention once elected and are also seen as representatives for their entire gender, instead of just their electorate or portfolio. With so few women getting the opportunity to be in parliament, you can't generalise their performance as being representative of all women, it's far too small a sample. There's also a whole heap of unaddressed structural gender equality issues that may be impeding their performance in some cases.

The performance of Julie Soso and other female politicians like Loujaya Toni in the Papua New Guinea Parliament was under the expectations of their constituents. I am highlighting this because this has withered the confidence of voters towards female politicians and their abilities to hold public office. The only performing female politician was Dame Carol Kidu, who resigned from politics at her own will. We can now safely say that there is not much difference to gender when it comes to politics. Whether a female or male is a politician, the test is performance just like any leadership role.

Many thanks for your comment and your interest in this work, the research will be published once it is finalised and we will be sure to circulate through our blog. Best wishes, Ashlee Centre Manager

It will be useful to have the findings published. If the findings are already published and are in public domain, kindly share a link so we can learn from your research. Regards B. Shadrach

Two follow ups. 1. On Twitter, Jonathan Pryke made a point which I'd also been wondering about: redistricting would almost certainly bring significantly more seats to the Highlands. (Or it would were it to actually tackle malapportionment.) Would PNG's political settlement cope with this? It's very unclear that MPs from elsewhere would tolerate it. 2. In news today, PNG's beleaguered electoral commissioner said any boundary review was unlikely prior to the next census. The reason: no funding. This is a perennial issue. https://www.thenational.com.pg/review-unlikely-says-gamato/

Thank you for your response Michael. As I informed you on the phone this blog was based on a much larger paper backed up with evidence from both Australian and New Zealand academics with similar findings. You are correct there does need to be better analyses on the percentage of employers/labour contractors overcharging in seasonal worker programs and these industries as a whole and I look forward to working with you again in the future.