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I got introduced to Robyn through Anton Van Engeles who is my advisor here in Afghanistan in an ARTF funded project works under the umbrella of Ministry of Agriculture. I am an active player for poultry sector development where women economic empowerment is the core objective. Poultry is often overlooked by the bigger agricultural players, yet they are still vital for women. They provide the “mark revolution” and the glue to keep the system going. More than 35000 women got benefit from this project in poultry production. Supporting this work as she does, is therefore vital for developing practical approaches to empowering women across the world. She is a well-deserved recognition.

Thanks Garth and Bob We do need new taxes for the 21st century, as the additional revenue paying for the services we expect of Government. Like the three main "cares": child; health care; aged. Or foreign aid. An alternative is a new (Tobin) Tax of about 0.01% applied to high-frequency foreign exchange transactions. A year ago, the Chairman of ASIC claimed that “Australia is being picked off by highly-leveraged, online foreign exchange brokers”. http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/currencies/asics-greg-medcraft-says-foreign-exchange-brokers-are-picking-off-australia-20150322-1m499a.html] The Reserve Bank calculated FOREX trades in April 2013 averaged US$182 billion each day. By contrast, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported Australia’s two-way trade in 2012 was $623.8 billion, or about 4 days FOREX trading. This suggests over 90 per cent of these trades are speculative. A Tobin Tax would mean a possible extra $18 million each day in Government revenue. Taxing the speculators would provide the extra revenue for Australia’s aid budget, e.g. child immunisation, clean water and education.

I have had the pleasure of working with Robyn since 1999 in one form or another and she has been a true inspiration to me. Her focus on achieving a sustainable Newcastle disease vaccine supply for village chickens is amazing and through sheer determination she has succeeded where many would have given up. The support that ACIAR and DFAT have provided over the years to keep this activity going has been great and it is a true credit to Australian Aid that the outcomes of this work are providing such tremendous benefits to the "last mile" poorest of the poor.

Thank you Logea for this important article. I agree that domestic funding is not enough and because of the lack of political commitment it is likely that this will continue to be limited. Also, funding from international partners is important but often targeted towards small - good - projects and with unpredictable funding. When project funding is cut the excellent services decline. These funding limitations also make it hard for some important lessons at project or community levels to be up-scaled into a national policy. These also mean communities cannot rely on large scale state funded programmes - at least not at this stage. I wonder if there are strong social work, mental health, and community support programmes in place in PNG universities and training institutions to train a cadre of young Papua New Guineans to work as professionals and engage in this policy space in the future?

Hi David, Good point. The previous question we commissioned (different wording so perhaps question wording effects) is covered here: https://devpolicy.org/who-opposed-the-aid-cuts-20151119/ As you can see in the previous question there majority support for the last round of cuts. We used Essential Media for the survey experiments. The essential media poll at the following link asked a similar question, and the results suggest some change over time: http://www.essentialvision.com.au/foreign-aid-spending-2 Terence

Hi Terence, Good stuff as always. It'd be really great to see or know / be reminded of the figures from the similar questions that were asked over the past few years to graphically (literally and metaphorically) show how Australians’ enthusiasm for aid cuts has waned. Is that possible? Cheers, David

Hi Stephen, the following may be of use to you in response to the issues you have raised. The advertising campaign you have referred to has been deferred until such time as it can be more effective, i.e. when the first tranche of repairs (now underway) has been completed. Australia is among the development partners contributing to the exercise. Your second point strikes me as something of a non-sequitur, as the issue of using government systems for disaster response and relief is entirely separate and the stumbling block here has been failure to allow the relevant agency to make appropriate technical decisions free from political influence not a failure to use resources appropriately through government systems. In addition, as the article outlines, the policy positions in this regard have changed over recent years, with decisions made by one government overturned by the next. This demonstrates the importance of policy stability rather than political stability.

Thanks Matt and Jonathan. It's a remarkable and sobering tale. Wasn't some Australian aid put to the advertising campaign to get tourists to come back? That's what <a href="http://ministers.dfat.gov.au/stevenciobo/releases/Pages/2015/sc_mr_151120.aspx" rel="nofollow">this press release</a> seems to imply. And was this the same Vanuatu government that badgered NGOs and donors to work through government systems during the cyclone?

An inspirational tale of persistence and dedication to a production system – village poultry – that invariably seems to be the poor relation to ruminants yet is the bedrock on which almost all other village livestock systems are built. Village poultry also provide women with valuable finance as well as proving high quality nutrition, especially for children. Newcastle Disease is the scourge of village poultry but the benefits that Robyn has bought to village poultry systems go far beyond reducing losses to this disease – encompassing better management of the birds and improved health of the poultry keeper’s family. Indeed Robyn’s work, and the way that it has been conducted, exemplifies the concept of ‘one health’.

Not partially, entirely. The Prime Minister said this in Paris: 'To this end, Australia will contribute at least A$1 billion over the next five years from our existing aid budget both to build climate resilience and reduce emissions.' This is not abnormal, though. In announcing the UK's much larger commitment prior to the Paris conference, David Cameron said, 'The government will provide £5.8 billion from the existing 0.7% official development assistance (ODA) budget to the International Climate Fund between April 2016 and March 2021, including at least £1.76 billion in 2020'. Almost all grant and concessional loan financing from OECD donor countries for climate-related projects has and will come from aid budgets.

In a statement from the then Minister for the Pacific Steve Ciobo, the government confirmed that all the billion dollar pledge made by the Prime minister in Paris would come from the aid budget - see the article by Nic Maclellan in the January edition of Islands Business magazine. Citing Ciobo, Maclellan reports that the billion dollar pledge includes the $200 million pledge for the Green Climate Fund made by Julie bishop at the Un climate talks in Lima in 2014 - so $200 million of the billion is already locked in

Thanks Luke. This is a very important and thought provoking piece of work. I would not advise the aid NGOs and other aid advocates to rush into the taxation debate too quickly, but some sober reflections on the data in this article might lead to some interesting options.