Comments

Indeed! I can just picture the awkward tour of the refurbished runway by the NZ Foreign Minister when he touches down. Thanks for the added information.

Bal, Could it be argued that it is not a case of the executive, nor indeed the judiciary, being too strong, but of provisions surrounding constitutional change being not strong or clear enough? In the above scenario, we have a government who has made a constitutional change which was valid according to the procedural elements of the PNG legal system. It would seem more appropriate to revise the procedures for constitutional change, rather than ask the SC to make a (unavoidably political) decision about whether despite procedural coherence, the change was unacceptable on other less concrete grounds.

Tess, thank'you for bringing some insights to this topic so readers can see and judge for themselves. It is important that we look at the progress the Vanuatu government has made in such a short span of time on this very pressing issue. I still think that Air-NZ has acted in an inappropriate way in its dealing with the Vanuatu govt. Credits should be given to the current government for the speedy recovery plan put ahead and as you clearly said, they are now in talks with the WB for a long term planning that will allow in the future larger aircraft to land. We are brothers and sisters, we are Pacific Islanders linked by one mighty Ocean, and we should not treat ourselves in such a way that we are hiding our "little dirty secrets" from each other. If Air-NZ thinks according to their financial analysis that AKL-VLI Route is no longer profitable, then the least they can do is announce the real reason behind this but in no way using the runway saga as their scapegoat. The prove is they want to fly in a charter. Bullying tactics has never taken anyone anywhere.

This item does not actually reference the fact that the necessary short-term repairs to the runway have been completed in accordance with the government's undertakings in its 100 day plan and according to schedule by 2 NZ civil engineering companies. The government is now in active discussion with the World Bank to secure a loan that will not only rectify issues with the airport at Bauerfield but will go beyond that to provide an upgrade to Level E (allowing for the use of larger aircraft). The High Commissions of New Zealand and Australia are well placed to advise corporate entities domiciled in their countries that the current government has demonstrated good will, active leadership and technocratic decision-making on this as well as numerous other fronts. I understand that Foreign Minister McCully is scheduled to visit Vanuatu in June in conjunction with a high-level EU delegation. One wonders how exactly he plans to get here.

An interesting and important article Ian. However, at the risk of being 'that guy', can I make a small but important point? Your article makes no distinction between Type 2 diabetes, which as you state can in many cases be prevented; and Type 1 diabetes, which is an auto-immune disease that cannot be prevented. The two diseases both impact the pancreas and blood-sugar levels within the body but are otherwise quite distinct conditions, both in diagnosis and treatment. I know the Lancet journal similarly did not distinguish between both types of diabetes, but in your article, when you make comments such as funding an 'off ramp' whereby diabetics can move to healthier outcomes, it makes those of us with Type 1 sound like we're just not trying hard enough. It's this conflagration of the two conditions that leads to mis-information and in some cases, mis-diagnosis and mis-treatment. I hope you understand that this comment is meant constructively, and that you'll take steps to distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in future articles.

Ian, thank you. Probably the most important - and complex - global development policy issue Dev Policy Blog has addressed, and that the world needs to act on.

Dear Ashlee, Thanks for your critique of the recent ODE evaluation on the Australia Awards' contribution to women's leadership. As one of the authors of that evaluation, I read what you had to say with great interest, and acknowledge and agree with some of the limitations you note with this evaluation. That stated, I did want to point out that one of the biggest criticisms you raise-- the issue of scholarships going to the elite, rather that fostering new leaders--is a bigger issue about the purpose of the Australia Awards within the Australian government's aid architecture. Specifically, scholarships have, and continue to be as much (if not more) about public diplomacy as they are about strengthening development outcomes within partner countries. The goal of the awards, according to a 2014 policy statement is to ensure, "Partner countries achieve their development goals, and have positive relationships with Australia, enhanced by the contribution of men and women with Australian qualifications, experience and networks, thereby contributing to security and economic growth in our region." In essence the awards are as much, if not more about Australia's interests, as they are about the interest of the partner countries these awards target. This presents some challenges from a women's leadership perspective, and particularly in terms of whom receives such awards, and why awards are targeted the way they are. As we found in the evaluation, awards go in the main to those within the public service, with prior overseas study experience, high levels of English and a prerequisite tertiary qualification. If the aim was to truly support development outcomes then the award programme would be structured entirely different, and might look more like what the Ford Foundation's award programme looked like. Unfortunately, given the leverage these awards often offer Australia with partner governments, that is unlikely to happen. As we note in the report, Australia Awards are one of the few forms of development assistance that goes to individuals, under the premise that investing in these key individuals has "trickle down" effects on society. This a questionable, and possibly flawed hypothesis. Our case studies do provide examples of women (and men) returning to their countries and becoming champions for change on a broader level, but often this is impeded by structural and institutional barriers that can demoralise and challenge such agency in the medium to long term. For that reason our evaluation does make a strong argument for post-award support to strengthening leadership outcomes that benefit broader constituencies, whether it be within or outside the formal workplace (noting that often it is often outside the formal workplace that these women are doing incredible stuff as I observed from my small case study into the Women in Leadership group in Africa). I believe Joel Negin and his team have come to a similar conclusion from their own study. Undoubtedly more can and should be done with the tracer studies in terms of the questions they ask. Most tracer studies do now ask about leadership outside the workplace setting. Unfortunately, our evaluation team faced significant challenges in obtaining raw tracer study data from various DFAT posts, and working to consolidate and analyse it under one master set. This precluded looking at this dimension of leadership from the tracer study data itself, but hopefully with the move to a global tracing approach, this can be done in the future. There are significant issues though with looking tracer study alone as they are based on self-report, often have low response rates, and do seem to capture the voices of metropolitan elites more than anything else. Fundamentally though, questions might and should be asked about whether Australia Awards are the most appropriate way to support and strengthen women's leadership outcomes. As you note, they do have an important role to play in shaping the "hearts and minds" of the recipients (men and women) and influencing gender norms. But this is on a very small scale, and ultimately is more about soft power and diplomacy than strengthening development outcomes for women and men in partner countries. From a value for money perspective, I might argue that if the Australian government is serious about strengthening women's leadership, it should go about doing so through vehicles other than the Australia Awards. Regards, Ritesh

Good.

Interesting information and yes supporting your notion that it shouldn't be restricted to specific sector, but demand-driven from Australian employers would assist the Microstates of Kiribati,Nauru and Tuvalu.

Mr Kama, I totally agree that the government will want to go to the elections with minor problems on its shoulder, only time will tell. On a different note, it was interesting to sit in a tutorial you gave at upng (L19) on the concept of 'separation of power'. As a political science graduate some years back at upng I was never given this insightful information. I am in first year law and I am eyeing constitutional law on 'constituent power' as the area of interest.

In my view, the creation of IDA is a total waste and misuse of tax payers money. There is no new role or special task that is performed by IDA. They are only duplicating functions of Works Department, NRA and Department of transport. Since the current government didn't support the idea of the role of IDA through the SWF bill, IDA should be Abolished. This office is financed thru the loan from Chinese Exim Bank and PNG taxpayers are repaying that loan .

Hi Ian, Thank you for your comment. The team working in the DFC are definitely a primary reason for the successful outcomes that are being achieved. The amount of time and energy that they are contributing to the clinic cannot be overlooked. Talking with clients at the six month review of the clinic really highlighted what a strong influence the staff were having on the clients. One client noted that the DFC personnel “try to make the client happy and make them laugh…they always talk to the patient and make them happy…they give them some strength to keep going.” This was just one of many comments praising the staff.