Comments

The whole affair sounds like the proverbial 'Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee' dissertation. I'm glad I didn't have to suffer sitting in the audience. The Senate has recently released the findings on a Report on PNG aid, so wonderfully timed as to coincide with the Parliament being prorogued and the government put in 'caretaker mode' so as no one will respond to the points raised based on the efforts everyone who contributed and who wanted to hear a government response about. If Tanya Plibersek felt that governance was 'undervalued', exactly what would she or any Labor appointed Minister do about it? Throw away lines and motherhood statements might satisfy the media but for those who take a real interest in PNG, the whole affair appears to be another talk fest and yet more hot air. Has 'global warming' struck again? Can anyone has the erudite skills and opportunity not get some answers to the real issues raised in the Senate Report? Maski traipla mauswara. Tupla lida imas kamapim sampla tok stret. Ol pipil iet bilo PNG ino lukim ol samting tru ikamap pinis.Tupla giamanim yumi olsem.

Hi Rohan Thanks for this important analysis. The exchange rate, and the related foreign currency shortage, is now regarded as the greatest impediment to business in PNG. Although exchange rate policy is often seen as a boring and technical issue, it is a priority for development analysis. Four comments. First, PNG probably would not be in the current problems if 4 June 2014 didn't exist. That is the date for the introduction of the exchange bands and the big upward spike in the blue line to join the red line. If the blue line just kept going down from where it was on 3 June 2014, possibly at a slightly faster rate, then PNG would be much closer to a market clearing rate (so no foreign currency crisis). Second, the graph is in US dollars. This is appropriate as the crawling peg policy has been based on the Kina/USD exchange rate. However, this hides a major story given the strength of the US dollar over the last two years. The Kina exchange rate has stayed much flatter relative to many of its trading partners, including Australia and Asian countries. Economically, this means that the exchange rate has not been as large a policy shock absorber as suggested by this graph. If PNG continues with a crawling peg system, this should be based around the Trade Weighted Index (TWI). Third, it is a matter of choice whether the vertical axis for the graph shows USD/Kina, or Kina/USD. Technically, both show exactly the same ratio. My preference is for Kina/USD which inverts the graph. This would show the tail end of the graph going up rather than down. This would reflect increases in competitiveness for the PNG economy. This small technical change can move the policy narrative from concern about a "weak" Kina going down, to one of a Kina becoming more competitive and going up. If you are a poor rural coffee or cocoa exporting household in PNG, you'd prefer the latter approach. If you are in an urban area on a formal sector wage relying on food imports, you'd probably prefer the former. Finally, PNG is currently seeking to release a USD 1 billion sovereign bond. There are K2 billion worth of reasons for making any needed exchange rate adjustment before issuing the bond (covered in <a href="http://pngeconomics.org/?p=184" rel="nofollow">this blog</a>). There are significant distributional issues in making changes and I look forward to the next post on international experiences of adjustment. Cheers Paul

I wonder what people dying from HIV or TB or other preventable lethal problems would think of statements in the debate like: "The 0.5% formula is merely a formula. It does not, of itself, mean better outcomes in health or education or security, or governance. It is a guide, an aspiration." Each day thousands of real people are dying because of a lack of resources for these programs. For example only 50% of people with HIV and a similar proportion of people with TB receive the treatment they need. Yet Australia only contributes $70m a year to the Global Fund or less than half of our fair share to this effective life saving program. Contrary to the Foreign Minister’s statement resources do matter, and in this case they determine whether people live or die. It is so disrespectful of them, and all of us, to pretend to argue otherwise. Listening to the hollowness of this debate makes me sad.

This connectivity should have been done ages before.

Thanks for this Matt and for agreeing to go to the lunch with me. One other issue that struck me was the comment made by Tanya Plibersek that she felt that governance was undervalued at present within the aid programme which is something I would largely agree with in the Pacific context. Again what we did not hear was how that might change should Labor win the election

Thanks Shaun, I agree we live in a world of limited resources and that efficacy matters. It naturally follows that I think evidence is important too. My main difference with MacAskill when it comes to aid is simply that we shouldn't be (overly) guided in choosing the work we do by the **type** of evidence we can obtain about the efficacy of our work. Terence

Thanks for elaborating Terrence. But I would still suggest in a world of limited resources (the only kind we are likely to know) evidence that a problem is important gets us part of the way there, but we should still be wanting some evidence of (positive) results if we devote our resources to that problem. Sadly there may be some insoluble but important problems, or at least those we don't have the wherewithal to solve now, that we must logically pass over to ensure our resources go where they can do good.

I wonder if how many MDBs a country is a member of is a very good measure of anything other than how unfocussed their aid program is. Would there not be something to be said for a country deciding on which MDB delivered the most effective and relevant outcomes and putting all their resources behind that.

Yes, join AfDB, and perhaps leave EBRD?

Thanks Sue, it is very interesting to get an NGO's perspective. And also to hear of events such as the one at the university of California. For what it's worth (and conceding you have greater practical experience than I) I do still think aid organisations (NGOs, governments, and multilaterals) should be doing more and better impact evaluations (not necessarily RCTs; there are 'silver standard' alternatives, which might suffice). However, the point about cost that you make is a very good one (I think RCTs can be done for <500k, but good ones will naturally cost more than most other evaluation alternatives). High costs mean there's a trade off, ever dollar spent on an RCT is a dollar that could be spent on aid work. And choosing how to spend that dollar isn't clear cut. It would be great I think if government aid donors could come to the party here more often in their NGO work and allocate special NGO funding to cover the cost of best-possible evaluations in instances where the learning is important. There's still a trade-off, but nice if it wasn't born by a cash-strapped NGO. Thanks again. Terence

Thanks Terence for this review. I am the social accountability adviser for World Vision (citizen engagement in service delivery). World Vision and other NGOs, including CARE, Oxfam, Plan and Save the Children do undertake rigorous evaluations including randomised control trials when circumstances permit. See <a href="http://www.iig.ox.ac.uk/output/briefingpapers/pdfs/iiG-briefingpaper-18-community-monitoring.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a> an Oxford led study of our social accountability work in Uganda. However RCTs are rare because of the lag times and the costs of such studies (between $500K and $1m) make these a prohibitive evaluation option except in very large projects. Even then, RCTs are such a specialised field that finding a researcher interested in the particular intervention can be difficult. I was recently at a 'match making' workshop run by the University of California and advocating a very interesting evaluation proposal around testing whether giving politicians information - as we do in our social accountability work - actually stimulates them to successfully advocate for better services to District government on behalf of their constituents as we are seeing happening across very different contexts including Indonesia, PNG and Uganda. We would have gone ahead but for the giant sample needed which only a government could provide. Unfortunately, donors also appear to be less willing to fund high quality researchers to do rigorous qualitative or mixed method evaluations that can be more suited to international development interventions. Beyond this, M&E consultants in international development are paid an absolute pittance, so it is no wonder we struggle so hard to get good evaluations.

I spend the last three years working with NGOs in all areas that include management, education, training, and or advocacy on current issues affecting the local Papua New Guineans, thus I am very much interested in some of the position s advertised. I like working with such an innovative organization who has the vision to educate and bring about services to the vulnerable population of PNG. I need direction on how to apply for Women's Empowerment and Protection Manager.