Comments

Bob, thanks for a thought provoking post. It makes me wonder if we have really grasped how to even think about this issue properly. Just as environmental sustainability has a specific meaning other types of projects and programs may need to adopt different concepts of sustainability. The author contrasts the evident sustainability of a bridge project with the harder to demonstrate and lower reported levels of sustainability of education projects. But couldn’t this be because we are again talking about different types of sustainability? In one sense sustainability is intrinsic to a bridge. It fulfils its purpose by not falling down. Once built a bridge should continue to be a bridge for at least a minimum projected lifetime and we should regard it as a failure if it were not to do so long past the aid project that built it. On the other hand, many aid projects, including the education projects you mention, are about engendering some kind of behavioural change. Surely we cannot expect behavioural change to have the same sort of sustainability as a bridge particularly as we are dealing with human beings and the myriad of unpredictable influences that impinge on their lives. Surely this kind of sustainability, if it is legitimate to seek it, is of a different order and needs different tools to understand and measure it.

Bob, Thank you for raising this important issue. I think all the points you raise are worthy of consideration for future development assistance for education. In my experience one of the ways to improve sustainability is to provide direct technical assistance to those who need to produce something. This often means sitting with the persons responsible for a product over relatively long periods of time introducing more effective and efficient tools that allows them to perform a required task. The skills the counterparts receive through this technical assistance methodology become well ingrained and longer lasting and thus more sustainable compared with one off training.

Thanks to both Paul and Darren for these stimulating posts on an important issue. I have been a supporter of the idea to look at ways to bridge development and humanitarian work, with the ultimate focus of trying to provide for people in the most efficient and effective ways. I do think there is value in this discussion and there are areas where greater linkages/streamlining could improve our ability to help people. Yet, if the aim at the WHS is to subsume humanitarianism under the SDGs, and development more broadly, I think absolutism is unhelpful. What worries me more is Paul's comment that to speak at the Summit you had to agree. This seems almost repressive. We need different perspectives and disagreement to advance our thinking. And to deliberately limit potential opportunities to speak out against States' rule violations is a concern. Hopefully rule-abiding States will be vocal on this at the Summit. Reading across the two blogs, it seems to me that progress requires two things. We need people at the Summit who will do their best while there to: hold States to account and get other States to do so, too; and advance thinking about how to expand and improve humanitarian action, and forge sensible links with development work. But progress also needs organisations like MSF who will use their power in a different way to communicate crucial information. When the system appears to be rigged against allowing a voice for the voiceless, then somebody needs to stand outside the system and yell.

Stewart, Thank you for the excellent article, and sorry to have missed your talk (I was overseas). Australia's failure to condemn the worsening situation in Nauru, although not surprising, has been disappointing. The whole affair has served to damage Australia's reputation in the region, and that damage extends to the aid program. There is a photo of Mathew Batsiua being arrested (for his peaceful protest) that shows him being bundled into a police car emblazoned with the "Australian Aid" logo, red kangaroo and all. It's an image that will not go unnoticed in a region where Australia portrays itself as promoting 'good governance'.

Michael, I don't think your assessment of education aid as universally ineffective stands up to scrutiny. Also why did you not mention the halving of child and maternal deaths since 1990, or the turning around of the HIV epidemic? Are these also examples of aid ineffectiveness in your eyes?

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Thank you for sharing this piece. I enjoyed reading it. I suppose the tricky thing about existing systems for temporary migration is that they are agreed on by the leaders of PICs involved. For them, the availability of some form of employment opportunity for unemployed PI citizens is better than nothing at all. And we know that with such kinds of mechanistic rationale driving policy, the migrant labourer more than often ends up being exploited and having to experience problems associated with dysfunctional systems.. Your call to broaden the discourse on temp migration is timely. PI leaders need to hear and understand what that means to propose fairer mechanisms to NZ and Australia.

Obviously if you don't think aid is on average effective, then you should support aid cuts. Of course, effectiveness matters. But if aid can be effective, as you seem to suggest, then it is hard to argue that quantity is irrelevant. Would we be happy with a $1 aid program, very well spent by sending it to, say, the Red Cross? Most of my research has been around aid effectiveness, but given the unprecedented aid cuts it would be odd not to focus on them. My own judgement is that there are plenty of opportunities to spend more aid well.

MSF has on numerous occasions spoken to state actors - often in tandem with other NGOs. As recently as 2 weeks ago at the UN, engaging them to pass a resolution to protect medical workers and their space. These issues have been repeatedly discussed on a number of stages so attending a summit will not make much of a difference, particularly in light of how outspoken MSF has been on the issue of bombings. By suggesting that the organization owes it to the community at large to come up with alternative means of providing aid sounds like a work around to the core issue: that facilities are being targeted and rules of war are not being respected.

Good analysis of the various conditions underlying corruption. Most of those conditions underlay corruption in other countries too. Does PNG have a Corruption Eradication Commission? This has had a small impact in limiting corruption in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (that is why corrupt elements attacked Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission last year). Are provincial governors elected by parties or directly? In Indonesia, governors are directly elected by the people, a system which occasionally allows honest politicians like Jokowi (before he became president) and Ahok to be elected as governors, based on their popular reputation rather than their influence (wealth) in a party. Indonesia and Timor-Leste are far, far from perfect but they may still offer some lessons.

Thanks, James, for adding your reflections on the report. I think you hit the nail on the head where you note that the report provides 'glimpses' into the key questions and issues, but fails to actually engage with them in a meaningful way.