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There is a growing number of small NGOs and foundations specializing in offering direct funding to grassroots leaders. And 20+ of them came together to write a book last year entitled, "Smart Risks: How small grants are helping to solve some of the world's biggest problems." See: smartrisks.org When people in the aid and philanthropy sector learned about our approaches to making small grants at the international level, there were always questions that revealed how “risky” this seemed to people: “How do you find the groups?” (In other words, “It’s much easier for us to fund the same, usual players in the capital cities who talk like us.”) “Aren’t most local NGOs corrupt?” (In other words, “I believe the hype about briefcase NGOs.” or “I inherently distrust people who are from different cultures or nations.” or “I may have racist or classist assumptions that have never been challenged.”) “How do you measure your results?” (In other words, “Small grants are too insignificant to make a real dent in any social issue.” or “Hard numbers are the only way I know if I am getting a return on investment.”) “How do you keep your overhead costs down?” (In other words, “It’s too expensive to fund at the grassroots. It costs me the same amount of money to make a US$5,000 grant as a $500,000 grant.”) We didn’t get it. For us, not investing in the wisdom, experience, and leadership of people most affected by poverty was the opportunity cost we were unwilling to bear. In our minds, placing our relatively small amounts of money in the hands of people who are already doing something to address the challenges in their own communities was actually one of the least risky things we as funders could do, and also one of the smartest. We also wanted to highlight the often more serious risks of supporting even more irrelevant aid interventions or the risk of new “players” on the scene turning into more over-bearing funders. And so we named our book about small grants, Smart Risks. If we are focused on the expected gains of lasting, transformative change over large scale or quick “results,” to deem an initiative or a group of people as “risky” continues to reveal the global power structures at play. Risk implies future uncertainty. That is something Smart Risks authors have learned to embrace. Hopefully those who haven’t yet considered funding grassroots groups may pick the book up and discover that it’s not as risky as they may think. And hopefully readers of all kinds will use the book to continue to deepen their analysis of how power and privilege play out in our work. Learn more here: https://www.smartrisks.org/

In the debate about Australia's influence in the Pacific and whether it is declining, there has been little discussion of Australia's attitude to climate change. But my experience with Pacific Islander students and churches suggests they are appalled by what they see as Australia's callous disregard for the dangers of sea level rise, increased cyclones and the other harms of climate change which will affect the islands. Examples of Australian politicians laughing at the plight of Islanders go down very badly. Clearly this is not the only reason for the distancing of relations between Australia and the Pacific Islands - but is more important than some commentary would suggest.

This is an excellent and very valuable piece of long-term research. Fascinating that 14 out of 22 of the workers have started to try a business. Most though seem to have failed. Getting workers to invest their seasonal earnings is more a matter of improving the business environment than providing financial or business training to workers.

Maybe its time to redefine Chinese antics in the Pacific region - from 'soft power' to 'sharp power'. While soft power is limited to spreading one's culture and values abroad,'sharp power' coined by the National Endowment for Democracy, a Washington-based think tank, more appropriately describes Chinese influence, through coercing opinion abroad, economically and otherwise (short of outright conflict), see: https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21732524-china-manipulating-decision-makers-western-democracies-best-defence There have been reports that Chinese development loans through EXIM Bank and AIIB, although given at concessional rates, do not allow debt restructuring, or the ability to write these loans off should a recipient country default. Hence, China is spreading its reach in economically vulnerable countries, repossessing key infrastructure that these loans are used to build. The Pacific region's need to be conscious of Chinese interests cannot be understated: China may help meet our short term interests, but an overarching regional dominance is its long term goal.

Sadly, it’s a consistent approach from a government which reportedly mentioned aid as much as it mentioned Antarctica in its recent White Paper on foreign policy...

If agencies are so concerned with taking risks, maybe they should take the time to plan for more options, and more solutions when issues do arise? I think they could benefit from developing their own custom software to plan and track projects, so they could be best-prepared in the moment when something does fail. It should be known that there will be many risks in International Development, but they could be well worth it in the end, with educated planning.

Thank you for this piece. I have only lately come to appreciate the extent of the refugee crisis. The world once tolerated slavery. I hope our generation will lead the way in ending the refugee crisis.

Michael, your point about different perspectives on risk is a good one. I also wonder if we need to think about variation *within* donors, for example between different branches of government, or even within the same agency? I suspect staff based in country may have different ideas (compared to staff at HQ) about what level of risk is optimal and which types of risk are of most concern.

Those sounds like great practical suggestions. This topic always makes me think of the big-picture question of what may be the "optimal" level of risk for an aid program. A few thoughts of mine are below. "Optimal" risk is probably different depending on whether you're considering the objectives of donors or beneficiaries. My impression is that donors, due to political constraints, prefer less risk than would be optimal for beneficiaries. If so, that's bad news; aid impact won't be maximised. For example, a portfolio approach makes perfect sense for optimising the impact on beneficiaries. But donors might still be nervous about the potential for public gaze upon the worst part of the portfolio, and thus limit the risk taken by any individual project. However, if the two perspectives of risk are not the same, there should be some high-impact risks to which donors aren't very sensitive. For example, some risks might offer potentially very high actual impact (which beneficiaries care about) without really damaging the ostensible impact (which donors care about). Is that naughty to suggest? Are there other ways to exploit the less-than-perfect correlation between the risks that donors versus beneficiaries are exposed to?

The description of Gobe land ownership issues as given here is somewhat misleading. It’s a fact that a proportionate division of benefits was agreed by Gobe landowners many years ago and benefit payments have been made on this basis. That some landowners have continued to pursue landownership issues through the courts is a separate issue. It’s a fact that in many jurisdictions around the world land-related disputes may sometimes be pursued by the protagonists for decades, even centuries. When courts are called on to make a decision there are winners and losers. Courtroom losers may well nurse a sense of grievance and look for legal avenues of challenge. All of this was no doubt well-known to and understood by those who drafted the custom law and custom land law legislation in PNG. Not only were the many and baffling common law rules on property discarded but also the ‘framing of the agon’ was designed in such a way that primary consideration is given to issues that are grounded in the present rather than encouraging a contestation of historical memories. It’s also a fact that many ‘PNG social groups exercise flexibility in their kin reckonings, group incorporation and inclusion, and partibility of land use. Hence the legislative preference for the living reality of contemporary ground truth as the basis for landowner determinations It’s a fact that a huge number of PNG groups have histories of migration and former land use that may date back for centuries. Different groups may have followed identical migration paths at widely separated points in time. Hence the legislative preference for contemporary ground truth. A primary role and duty of the PNG Land Court is to push back onto the protagonists the task of finding a solution to their dispute. In the context of the LNG Project this is made quite easy because the money benefit is both moveable and divisible. It’s worth noting that ADR was used to good effect in the Moran field dispute many years ago. Once the money division question is settled a contest between groups over their exact land boundaries, rights and usages may continue, perhaps for ever. One view is that the primary role of PNG courts when considering customary landownership matters is to not come to a decision. Conciliated and mediated settlements are greatly preferred over judicial decisions for many classes of disputes. When assessing PNG petroleum project landownership issues it has to be taken into consideration that the anthropologists’ SMLIS reports have not only failed to provide the needed information but may have also produced a negative effect. The petroleum projects’ SMLIS reports produced from 1998 and ending with the P’nyang Case courtroom fiasco of 2016 promoted the view that all Hela landowners have a landownership interest in all Hela-owned land and much land owned by non-Hela (the ‘genealogical footprint’ principle). It seems reasonable to conclude that this view served to stoke the fires of the political struggle waged by many individuals and groups to gain access to petroleum project landowner royalty benefits. A most inappropriate ‘framing of the agon’. Vailala

Thanks for keeping me abreast with the issues affecting Pacific Women. Pacific women, if we can not get in the parliament, we should be given the chance to be in the forefront to lead social and economic development projects. I think female managers do better remittances for aid donor projects than would a male. citing Timor Leste model.

Truly the O'Neil Government lacks basics of economic growth and revenue raising. This Government lacks wisdom. The good this Government has done is rob the people and pay parliamentarians to keep this government in power.