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From Garth Luke on For hungry people, an internet connection isn’t a priority
I agree with you Ian. Innovation can of course be a good thing, however the main reason people are still hungry, millions of people are still dying from preventable and treatable diseases and children are not learning enough in schools is not a deficit of knowledge or effective strategies. We know how to defeat all these problems and programs around the world have had great success.
The main reason these problems are still with us is that politicians in developing and developed countries have not been willing to adequately fund programs. By far the most important innovation required is to increase the empathy and commitment of politicians to the poor.
From Tess Newton Cain on Vanuatu’s general election — some preliminary thoughts
I discussed some of these issues with <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-25/no-women-win-seats-in-vanuatu's-snap-general/7111448" rel="nofollow">Pacific Beat</a>
From Paul Oates on Politicising drought relief in Papua New Guinea
In an interesting development, Oro Governor Gary Juffa has recently been reported as starting to identify and publicize public funding wastage and corruption including possible malfeasance in distributing DSIP funding.
Wantok. What are your thoughts on Governor Juffa's action Thiago?
From Dennis on Connectivity can create islands of opportunity in the Pacific
Indeed, connectivity creates opportunities, awesome post.
From paul on Climate finance: the Paris opera, and Australia’s (un)supporting role
Great insight, While nations wrangle over a new global treaty on climate change, the question on many minds is: What happens next? Some are focusing on curbing deforestation and boosting renewable energy sources. Several nations are experimenting with cap-and-trade plans: Regulators set mandatory limits on industrial emissions, but companies that exceed those "caps" can buy permits to emit from companies that have allowances to spare. In some cases, it's not clear that countries are doing much to meet their stated climate goals. What is clear is that the pledges currently on the table aren't legally binding, and they fall far short of what would be required to stabilize the planet's atmosphere.
From Ryan on Coal, poverty and energy access
Nice post, Matt. Decent empirical evidence on the direct poverty impacts of coal and other mining sectors is surprisingly thin (c.f., development benefits of energy generally), but these three articles might be of interest to you and other blog readers:
<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X14002447" rel="nofollow">Indonesia, today the largest coal exporter</a> (ungated pdf <a href="http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/pdfs/csae-wps-2013-14.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>)
<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12244/abstract" rel="nofollow">Ghana (gold)</a> (ungated pdf <a href="http://www.theigc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Aragon-Rud-2013-Working-Paper.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>)
<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214790X14000860" rel="nofollow">A review</a>
Cheers
From Garth Luke on Coal, poverty and energy access
In 2014 the Center for Global Development in Washington <a href="http://www.cgdev.org/blog/energy-access-vs-renewables-tradeoff-our-reply-kammen-and-oxfam" rel="nofollow">estimated</a> that government incentives to the private sector could provide access to electricity for three times as many people with fossil fuels than with renewables.
However the most important factor in their calculations was not the differences in costs of the energy sources, but the historically higher leveraging that had been achieved with fossil fuel plants (5:1 cf 1.5:1).
We know that increased fossil fuel energy production is bad, and could be catastrophic, for all of us. We know that most developing countries have good solar and wind resources. We know that changes to financing incentives can make renewable energy costs competitive with fossil fuel costs.
While coal has been useful in the past, the main reason we are still considering coal and other fossil fuels for the production of new electricity is the established interests of fossil fuel producing companies and countries.
From Paul Oates on Politicising drought relief in Papua New Guinea
Hi Thiago, I am tad intrigued about your contention that: 'within PNG critics of greedy MPs and dodgy DSIP funding often do not call for the abolition of the scheme, but rather that it should be ‘fairer’.
That is rather inconsistent with the feedback I hear from the kunai roots.
Perhaps you could elucidate more on the basis of your statistical analysis?
Olsem mino klia tumas lo as tru blo tingting blo yu lo displa samting. (I'm not really sure about what your perspective is based upon? Is this statement based on facts or opinion?)
From Thiago Cintra Oppermann on Politicising drought relief in Papua New Guinea
Hi Tess,
I think there are several reasons why DSIPs are more politicised than national and provincial budgets. A preliminary comment here is that by 'politicised' I mean 'captured by the individual MP's political machine'. (We're not talking about DSIP funding being coopted into an ideology.)
The first point would be that while National and Provincial bureaucracies are vulnerable to pressure from politicians, DDAs are convened by politicians. They are explicitly designed to increase the power of the local MP over the direction of government funding. For all their problems, national and provincial bureaucracies are at least notionally separate from the will of individual MPs, whereas DDAs are designed to provide a vehicle for their political agenda.
Second, the levels of expertise and capacity of National and Provincial bureaucracies, although far from ideal, are much greater than those found in district administrations. This makes them more resilient to political pressure. The practicalities of keeping all the districts accountable are also daunting: they are already very difficult with the Provinces, and those administrative tasks are now being multiplied by an order of magnitude, while supervision and training are not.
Third, although one might think that district administrations, being closer to the grass roots, are under a 'democratic supervision', in fact politicians hold all the cards in appointing DDA members and securing funding. DDA meetings often take place outside of the district, are not announced, and their minutes, which are theoretically public documents, are held in secret.
It is possible that politicians will end up being thrown out of office for poor handing of DDAs; distributivist politics brew a lot of resentment, and perhaps, for some MPs, K20 million funding and DDAs will be a case of the curse of getting what you wanted. Yet the development of constituency funding is one of the most interesting stories in PNG political economy: it has ratcheted up since the early 1980s, and under O'Neil it has bloomed into a major, perhaps even primary, aspect of the government. This has happened against the advice of outside parties, such as the IMF, WB and donors. Even PNG politicians sympathetic to these critics have presided over expansions, or efforts to disguise, the distributivist system. The social forces promoting this kind of political organisation are in fact ubiquitous at every level, from the cabinet to 'ol as peles' (villagers). Note the surprising fact that Provincial members, who stand to lose power relative to Open MPs in the transition to DDAs, voted for the scheme. Note also, that within PNG critics of greedy MPs and dodgy DSIP funding often do not call for the abolition of the scheme, but rather that it should be 'fairer': there are moral criticism of 'bad MPs', but it is hard for people to envision a politics that broke at a fundamental level with the concept that politicians should personally 'kisim ol gutpela sevis i kam long peles', 'bring good services to the village'. I believe this would require deep social changes.
From Bal Kama on PNG in 2016: the year of finding solutions?
Thank you Levi. While parts of the article tries to be optimistic, early signs suggest the need for extreme caution on the part of the government in 2016. Will be an interesting year.
From Jo Spratt on Introducing the Australian Aid Tracker