Comments

Indeed you raise many valid points - too impractical to offer a detailed discussion here. however, it has to be said that what happens in PICs is characteristic of the situation in other developing countries around the globe. FDI is a big driver of tourism development and consequently economic leakages are inevitable. In the absence of FDI, tourism product development would be stunted and the destination will be adrift from the global tourism supply chain. You are right that in general, Managers tend to be expatriates - there are many reasons for this. Some companies prefer expatriate managers for skills and experience based reasons, others do it because where the majority of employees are drawn from the same communities, having a manager with familial links can create enormous operational challenges. Tourism jobs tend to inherently low skilled and low paid around the globe. In many respects tourism is a reflection of globalisation and as geographer Stephen Britton argues, tourism takes PICs into a situation they have little control over. You are generally right in that the impacts of tourism are rarely of concern to the traveller -hedonism characterises much travel - the responsible tourism movement is trying to change this. Alas, out of mind out of sight - Bali is a case in point. The broader question is if not tourism, what then? Economic diversification for small island countries is immensely challenging. Donors and multilateral organisations are trying to change this but the constraints are so intractable. There is no easy fix and the inequalities and injustices evident in tourism in PICs are commonplace elsewhere. Not that this is a convenient excuse, it is the inescapable reality.

Sure tourism is labour intensive but mostly developers come from richer nation's investors and very little of the money spent remains in the local community. I recently visited Samoa and spoke to other tourists when I realised that so many of the locals are paid a pittance by their own standards. Why allow investors when the money just keeps on leaving the country? Most of the senior employees in the hotels weren't local workers. The local workers got the low paid low skilled jobs and there isn't much of a career path or even a job skills path. It's not that holidays in the Pacific are cheap - it's just the mindset that the impact on the local community and the environment is not a concern to the happy holiday maker. Where is the ethical arguments about investing in the PIC and the benefits to the host country?

I don't understand why anyone is paying attention to the comments of Ms du Plessis-Allan. What qualifications and experience does she have to warrant these responses? She's a commercial radio announcer paid to provoke - is that a position where her views are worthy of respect? By responding you are giving the lady unwarranted status which would delight her ratings-hungry employer. Debate the issue - but by hearing from those with credibility.

The development of tourism in the Pacific island countries is certainly possible but imperfect government policy too often makes it improbable. In the past 35 years, I don't think I've read a single paper on PIC tourism that has been able to make the connection between tourism potential and the realities that private developers face in investing in tourism development in the islands. Please see my blog of February 13, 2012 "Islanders in business? There could be more if the policies and institutions were right" and the now many private sector assessments of the Private Sector Development Initiative: http://www.adbpsdi.org/p/what-is-psdi.html

A useful piece Lisa, and looking forward to the next two. On MEL you might want to take a look at our recent summary of a discussion on a related topic: https://asiafoundation.org/2018/09/12/monitoring-evaluation-and-learning-in-adaptive-programming-expanding-the-state-of-the-art/ or at this blog summary from Arnaldo Pellini: https://arnaldopellini.org/2018/06/21/mle-or-mel-in-adaptive-programming/ or Chris Roche's take: https://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/simplicity-accountability-and-relationships-three-ways-to-ensure-mel-supports-adaptive-management/ thanks, Sam

Hi Lisa, I agree. Not all programs claiming to be adaptive are using TWP and PEA analysis. Those who are using those tools are doing so at various degrees and levels. My experience shows that those who are using those tools more often are driven by the need to understand the 'local context', and I also believe that those programs are in the front this work in PNG.

Thanks, that is a short and fairly accurate summary.

The GDP measurement challenge continues, and seems to be getting worse. Is there intentional misleading or is it mere ineptitude? Has an update been published?

Yes, that may well be true Stephen! My argument is about trying to make the most of what we've got (trying to get TA to work better, given there's so much of it), but you are right that this approach does run the risk of continuing to legitimise its use in the longer term.

The issue of whether there is too much TA in the Australian aid program (surely, yes) is quite different from whether enough of that TA is spent on actually doing useful things (surely, no). The problem with suggesting that there are other "fancy" things TA can do (like "joining the dots" as you suggest) or of giving approaches to TA labels such as adaptive is that this simply legitimizes further reliance on TA with little or no return. It becomes a form of whitewashing.

Hi Jeol Negin, I wanted to ask what your point of view is about the guidelines provided by WTO and OECD for poverty reduction through aid for trade?

Thanks Stephen - my TA line was a bit of a throw away and not well explained. I agree that there are instances where substituting capacity may be necessary (and where the importance of getting a task done immediately outweigh that of longer term capacity building). But the Australian aid program remains quite TA heavy and I think there is also a danger that TA are too often the default answer. My wider point, however, is that even if you are in a program with lots of TA (which may constrain your ability to adapt to some degree) there are a variety of roles that TA can play that you can adapt the program to as is appropriate.