Comments

Thank you for your blog Bobby. It's an excellent survey of the pros, cons, and limits of CDD - based on the hard grind of experience, and not theoretical speculation. My takeaway is that CDD works best when it sticks to what it does best (delivering small-scale infrastructure in an environment where centralised governance is weak), and loses traction when it starts shooting for bigger and wider social transformation and change. But I suspect that's its strength, and not its weakness. In a wider governance environment where public investment and donor funding may struggle to find fertile ground, CDD delivers. This deserves to be lauded. Well done on playing your part in bringing this fact to wider attention.

With the world advancing into digital era with the use of technology its better to have people like you who are innovative in serving in this area to better inform our younger generations to be wise in their decision for better Papua New Guineans to takeover from current leaders in the future. Leaders are not born but are nurtured and groomed, so thank you very much. I hope your dreams and visions for our youth are achieved.

I suggested 2-3 years ago to ETG that they build a tunnel NOW across the end of existing runway between airstrip and Comoro River, so that a runway extension to the river bank could go over the top economically. Into the sea your map shows a smaller extension into the sea is feasible. Step by Step! I have thought the Suai airport was to attract oil and gas business (probably via helicopters!). The Oecusse airport development is impossible to explain logistically.

I agree that "Conflict has always been a barrier to progress, but the ways in which today’s wars are being fought are putting children firmly on the frontline. The rise in reported attacks on safe spaces such as schools and hospitals represent an assault on children’s rights." You might like to hunt out The Canberra Times of 22 January 1993 and read page 3 (I have a copy). It's an article on "Soldiers Fighting Hunger, not War". It sought to develop the next steps after Australia's 1991 "Operation Habitat. Humanitarian aid to the Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq". Details are in the Medical Journal of Australia, 155(11-12):807-12 · December 1991. Which can be read here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/21410968_Operation_Habitat_Humanitarian_aid_to_the_Kurdish_refugees_in_Northern_Iraq

Only way to solve corruption in the nation is to make men to make Godly moral nation in PNG

Most senior health workers in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are aware of the brain-drain, push-pull factors, cost benefits, etc. The general opinion amongst senior health workers is that PICTs should produce more health workers. For example, compared to 2012 there is an increased number of medical graduates across the region because of an increased number of medical schools (FNU, UPSM [Fiji], NUS [Samoa] and UPNG [PNG]) and an increased number of international graduates (Cuba, Taiwan, China, etc) apart from the traditional providers (Aust, NZ). One of the Pacific Reset options is to strengthen the academic institutions in the PICTs to produce more quality postgraduate training in all health fields. PICTs have moved on from the term brain-drain to brain-rotation whereby health workers from the PICTs are working in other PICTs to address their shortage of health workers. We welcome the academic debate but we don't need more studies to tell us our problems. We need solutions. * a Pacific Health Worker in the PICTs for 25 years and still learning

Thanks Dr. Sinclair Dinnen and Grant Watson, this is indeed a area that needs to be carefully appraised and discussed at the highest levels of the Government of Papua New Guinea. There is without doubt that the SIA as regulator of the private security industry in PNG has become weak and lacks teeth. But also there are many weaknesses too in the public police force in Papua New Guinea. I think there is opportunity for collaboration between the RPNGC and the Private Security Industry particularly in people-smuggling, child trafficking, and human smuggling rings such as pedophile rings that operate in a clandestine manner across the globe.

The malaise of low exposure online seems common to many fields, mainstream interests and click-bait seem to rule the day as there's so much to draw people's attention. But of course this could potentially swing to the opposite extreme if they discover that a large scale looming hazard will unequivocally puts them 'on the spot'.

FAR TOO MANY otherwise responsible politicians are COMPLICIT, do nothing about known crimes.

The article mentions direct flights to Dili from Hong Kong, of which Macau is in easy reach as well as Greater China, but none at all about those from Singapore, which ended after nearly eleven years - this was not Air Timor's fault, as Singapore Airlines is looking to integrate Silk Air into the parent company. Perhaps the new Chinese-backed company could operate the Singapore-Dili route. The visa authorisation thing is a disgrace - it was bad enough when it was introduced at the border, meaning that visitors caught short had to go back to Kupang and then fly into Dili from Denpasar, but ending visa on arrival at Dili airport is ridiculous. As to the new international airport in Oecussi, it has white elephant written all over it - a greater priority should have been expanding Dili airport runway or developing Baucau airport, the only one in the country able to handle large long-haul aircraft. It could be to Timor Leste what Nadi airport is to Fiji.

Authentic pacifica wear Tapa. Sulu is made from waitman fabric. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282645764_A_holistic_picture_of_Austronesian_migrations_revealed_by_phylogeography_of_Pacific_paper_mulberry

Would reclassifying PNG as part of South East Asia improve its fate?