Comments

Thanks for the post Dan. Super interesting. And resonates with my own (limited) experience in other communities in Sols - particularly around "what works" with youth engagement. I have heard many stories over the years of the positive impact of alcohol free sporting events with sanctions for breaking the prohibition - particularly where the sanctions are enforced by peers and / or respected local "elders". Unsurprisingly, I am also really interested to read more of your research regarding interventions from outsiders...appreciate if you could keep me posted about that book chapter?

While I understand that economists like to pontificate on this stuff and there is some value to it, sometimes it kills me and makes me think there should be more women in economics! While yes there are huge work-related 'costs' in having children, more heavily borne by women, there are also quality of life costs. There's the costs of pushing a bowling ball out of your body which are solely borne by women. There is a risk of permanent or temporary disability from the act of childbirth. Also, I am told that it hurts a lot to give birth and it is uncomfortable to be heavily pregnant! For women who breastfeed, this is another time cost borne solely by the woman — a form of economic production really that is completely ignored. I also feel that economists also conflate demand and supply of children — the fertility rate measures births, ie supply, not actual 'demand' for children, marginalising people who perhaps have experienced infertility/pregnancy loss, or who feel they can't afford to have children/as many children as they would like. There's also other groups for which the economic costs of falling pregnant are substantially higher — it's very expensive for lesbian couples or single women to go through the IVF process, for example, or for couples experiencing infertility. These opportunities are only available when income increases. There's also the issue of the undervaluing of women's domestic labour, and the 'second shift' issue for working women. An increase in income may mean the ability to outsource some of this labour, which makes balancing work/home easier, for example. But in a developing country, where women's labour is informal, this 'cost' often seems overlooked. One clear trend is that when given a choice, women choose to have fewer children. Not just because of job satisfaction/career, but because of bodily autonomy and a whole host of other reasons — in the US, the crushing burden of educational debt is being cited as one reason that Millennial women are putting off childbirth, as one example. It's complicated! In developing countries women often don't have access to the same choices due to gender inequality. So I don't think you can de-couple a discussion about income and reproduction from women's rights, and their place in an economy. I understand there are some clear differences between the developing/developed country fertility rates etc, and there is a fascination in considering why and what the economic trend is etc, but kids sometimes seem the most irrational consumer decision of all! Especially for women who bear the biggest costs by far. (They are so cute though...)

Clearly the Sydney Morning Herald journalist read the wrong version of A Clockwork Orange! The UK version’s 21st chapter (only 20 chapters in US version) is critical. Yes, very interested in the book chapter, can you email it? I’m working with Sinclair Dinnen on a project on security assemblages in PNG...hope to get to the field later this year...

Thanks Grant, funnily enough, that SMH article I reference in the blog incorporates commentary on ACO which I include in my thesis. Maybe I should expand! Great question concerning RAMSI and donors/NGOs. To keep you on tenterhooks, the approach of international NGOs in Burns Creek - and how they contribute to change, both positive and negative - is soon to be broached in a book chapter. The short answer is that outsiders have a role to play, but (as has been said a squillion times) context is key. Their interventions are welcomed by communities, but can play out in unexpected ways, becoming causes of divisiveness, competition and, at times, violence. I think that very cautious support backed by evidence is required ... and an appetite for failure. Happy to share the draft chapter if you are interested Grant.

Great insights Dan. I wonder how much this change had to RAMSI and/or other donors/NGOs, or is it all community driven? If the latter is the key message that donors and others should get out of the way when it comes to security? Or should they cautiously support sporting programs that stress players not drink, etc? On another note, the mellowing of Raskols due to marriage and kids reminds me of the fate of the main protagonist, Alex, in A Clockwork Orange (the first book version published in the UK, the second US version and film omits the final chapter on his love-inspired mellowing). So, a request: can you reference ACO in the thesis - at least once?

Really good article that got my thought juices flowing, and is very applicable to environmental management processes in one supposedly developed country - Australia - where the tussle between 'the intensely local nature of problem solving with the ever-present desire for impact at larger scales' has ended up in a decade or more of shadow boxing between whats funded by government as 'Natural Resource Management' and the more community based landcare movement. So your article then asks "What, then, is actually scalable? Is it the specific policy solution or change in practice developed in a given district that should be replicated in other contexts, or rather the process of facilitated problem solving? If it is the former, does abstracting the outcome from the navigation of the political process simply result in transplanting technocratic solutions (even within country borders) that will lead to implementation failures and the creation of institutional forms without function?" Yep. I'm sticking with 'facilitated problem solving' at the local level - nothing else seems to work - and feel its not so much a matter of scaling up but building cohesion between all the locally applied local solutions so that the accumulated benefits deal with how those local problems express themselves at scale

Debt to GDP commentary aside, how about the viability of the petrodollar cycle and the increasing use of alternative currencies, by the global South? Pacific Island nations may shift in that direction as well; considering the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is at their door steps.

Daniel - thanks for the blog. This describes well the challenge we are addressing through an ambitious Decentralisation and Citizen participation portfolio here in Papua New Guinea. One key element is a local solutions initiative that combines locally-driven catalytic co-investments in services or economic opportunity with more transferable governance outcomes. The idea is both to establish local capabilities in policy and program/projects, but also influence national policy (where decentralisation is still less established and more confused than in Indonesia). Consider a visit to PNG - the 'land of the unexpected'!

FSV is a massive challenge for the nation. We had a Bel Isi advocate present some stats and it was quite disconcerting, it made me think and in my reflection I could not name any family I know that has not been touched by FSV - it would almost be an exception to the norm if I could think of one. Without trying to erode the importance at of the work being done at this FSV stage (i.e. the violence has occurred), I'm curious to know the level of investment in "preventative programs" in comparison to activities at this stage where the crime. Are we doing enough to prepare the young children, teenagers and young adults to be making the right decisions, understanding their values and being able to ID shared values in others, builds self-esteem, etc. I'm no expert but psychology plays a big part, doesn't it? What's out there for our kids to build them up and prep them for life.

Develop the value chain, the Department is just one piece in the puzzle.

Thanks Paul for your valuable comments. Ideally, it is better to have sector price indices as deflator in obtaining PNG's real GDP as having one implicit price deflator masks the heterogeneous nature of individual sector. This should paint a clearer picture of the real activity taking place in different sectors and better reflect the economic welfare of the population. Having said that, we know it's practically not feasible when NSO struggles to even release economic data on a timely manner. Anyway, looking forward to your analysis.

Thanks Dek and Bao for examining this vital area. As someone who works on analysing PNG's economic history, this is a valuable contribution and I certainly support the conclusions - including extending the same points to other Pacific countries. Three main comments. First, there was a massive break in the GDP series in 2006. The NSO, working with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, used improved methodologies to determine GDP in 2006 was nearly 50% larger than the NSO's own earlier estimates. Unfortunately, they did not then determine how best to apply this major revision to their earlier numbers (NSO does have earlier figures - they just haven't been adjusted for the 50% change). Most of the huge variation in the World Bank and UNCTAD series results from no attempt to update earlier figures, while the IMF has (presumably by backcasting former sectoral growth rates to the new sectoral structure of the economy for 2006). Second, as you indicate, the choice of the deflator series can have a major impact. This becomes even more significant when separating PNG's resource sector from PNG's non-resource sector. When working with GDP series, especially if trying to determine trends in economic welfare, it is important in a dualistic economy such as PNG to separate out the non-resource sector GDP (so that part of GDP on which 85% of PNG households depend) and arguably apply a deflator reflecting changes in household costs rather than a GDP implicit price deflator. Once again, when looking across the Pacific, there is a real need to carefully consider the appropriate deflator to determine changes in household economic welfare. Thirdly, there are some extraordinary games being played with PNG's GDP series from 2015 onwards. My conclusion in a blog coming out on the PNG Economics website on 28 January is PNG's GDP statistics from 2015 have been deliberately corrupted by the current PNG Government. Thanks again for the analysis. Paul