Comments

Hi there, please provide information so I can be well informed of the latest events from your end. Best regards. Lazarus Apso

Timely highlights. Thanks, Mike.

Thanks for this timely blog. Don't forget the impact on some Pacific Island government budgets through their Trust Funds (FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, RMI, Timor-Leste and Tuvalu) with earnings negatively impacted by the global fall in the stock markets.

Thanks, Maho. The links we provided refer to major 2024 money laundering investigations and convictions—amounting to billions—mostly in the Global North. In the Global South, the largest case last year was in Australia. To clarify, it’s not about the share of GDP. The FATF greylist doesn’t necessarily reflect the volume of money laundered. Instead, it assesses “technical compliance” and, more recently, “effectiveness” or “outcomes.” This means a country can have billions being laundered but still avoid the greylist if it has implemented most AML/CTF standards and shown evidence of successful prosecutions. In contrast, many developing countries lack both—due to capacity constraints, limited resources, and often political will. As a result, even without clear evidence of large-scale money laundering (as is the case for most if not all greylisted countries), they can still be greylisted for failing to meet technical standards.

Another timely article, thanks to the authors. For the billions you mention being laundered in the global north, have you quantified how much is estimated to be laundered? The share of GDP (or size of financial sector) of money laundered would allow for global comparisons to see the extent to which money laundering is potentially destabilising, and if FATF is justified in pursuing poorer countries (if indeed their share was higher).

This article is a good reflection.

As I commented elsewhere on this site, the self-help of microfinance seems to have dropped off the western "aid radar" - and local, it seems. The BRAC report (referenced by Stephen on his "Aid Update" post) made no explicit comment on its work on microfinance, otherwise its oldest project: “Microfinance, introduced in 1974, is BRAC’s oldest programme. It spans all districts of Bangladesh.[ It provides collateral-free loans to mostly poor, landless, rural women, enabling them to generate income and improve their standards of living. BRAC’s microfinance program is estimated to give out around the equivalent of one billion dollars a year in loans.” Are BRAC’s microfinance loans underpinging this part of that current Brief: "1 in every 4 households who lifted themselves out of extreme poverty in Bangladesh in the last 13 years did so with Australia’s support. Approximately four million households lifted themselves out of extreme poverty in 2012-2024,.... " What was that form of "Australian suppport" referenced ? It would be useful to remember that 20 years ago: 2005 was the International Year of Microfinance – Bangladesh’s interim head of Government, Mohammad Yunus, being a well-known pioneer of microfinance.

There are proposals before parliament for alternative forms and systems of government. A consultation was conducted by the Constitutional Law Commission in 2023-2024. Parliament has not tabled and debated it yet.

Dear Fredrick, Good to read your comments. Interestingly, Papua New Guinea and Kenya share a notable similarity in the use of constituency funding. Kenya is often cited as a positive example of how the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) can be effectively implemented—whereas PNG is frequently regarded as a bad case. For instance, PNG’s CDF is allegedly used to secure political support in votes of no confidence. Unlike Kenya, which has a standalone CDF Act providing a legal framework and oversight, PNG lacks such legislation. This absence leaves significant room for misuse—such as rewarding Members of Parliament who back the Prime Minister with access to funds, while delaying or withholding the share meant for opposition MPs.

Michael Kabuni, I enjoy reading your articles. Here in Kenya, we would simply call you "Daktari" a swahili translation for "Doctor". Good insight. I see alot of similarities with Kenya's governance system.

Dear Lisa This is a great article and I like that you can see a silver lining in this madness! One of my queries about localisation is that in implementation it may replicate the power hierarchies and discrimination that we see in wider society. There was a study on localisation at Cordaid which noted that local NGO priorities diverted significantly from international NGOs "While several interviewees argue that the fundamental values pursued by INGOs and LNGOs are identical (interviewees 2, 3, 6, 7, 9), the widely supported opinion is that in terms of gender-related, LGBTQ+, and religious minority rights, INGOs and LNGOs regularly operate based on significantly divergent values. For instance, local partners in multiple countries are described as not believing in “LGBTQ+ stuff” and being reluctant to promote LGBTQ+ and gender-related rights due to the lack of acceptance culturally and by authorities, even having to fear for their lives when addressing such sensitive topics". I don't think that anyone externally should be imposing values on others, but I do know some local organisations (currently) who support minority rights who are grateful for the external actors / INGOs or external consultants (even from other neighbouring countries) that support their initiatives and help open up the conversation - and which offers them a degree of safety to advocate for more inclusive approaches to justice etc. It is also frequently suggested that localisation should mean a transformation of the values should inform development aims - in that the local community’s values should prevail as part of genuine (community-oriented) localisation. In one article I read it was written "NGOs work for the local communities, after all. If localisation concerns shifting agency and power from Northern to Southern NGOs, they reason it should not only entail shifting “operational” agency, but “value” agency as well." This sounds good and right to me. However I do worry that in this scenario smaller organisations that advocate for 'unpopular' values or who enjoy lesser power may be ignored or worse, threatened and shut down. Again I have no quick solutions and I know some of these issues we have discussed before!! Unfortunately I do strongly believe that President Trump's "war on 'woke'" (or war on human rights) seems to have given explicit permission to certain sectors in all societies all over the world (including in Australia) to be louder and more discriminatory and more traditional/conservative in their behaviour and their words. But here I am probably getting off topic... Thanks again for the great piece and all the other very interesting comments. Renee

Hi Peter, Thanks for your comments and sorry for the belated reply. I think "formal evaluation of outcomes" will only get us so far. How much different projects achieve is often a matter of judgement. I also think following principles like localisation is important for effective aid, even if we often can't tell exactly how effective that aid is. It's a messy business, and there is no single or simple approach to assessing or improving aid effectiveness in my view. I do agree with you of course that aid effectiveness is important and the blog tried to cover both aid quantity and aid quality issues. I do appreciate your advocacy for effective aid. Please keep the comments coming. Regards, Stephen