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And here is an excellent New Yorker <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine" rel="nofollow">article</a> debunking the idea of 'disruptive innovation'. Thank you, this is a really good blog and got me thinking about my very strong aversion to the word 'innovation'. I have no problem investing in research and development, particularly in areas where it can really make a difference, such as in health. My issue is that like so many things in development, the latest fad tends to dominate and drive all decisions, even when it might be inappropriate. Technically, the word 'innovate' means to make new or bring something new. And who doesn't like 'new' ideas and putting them into practice? But to emphasise it so heavily in an aid programme (as this government is) implies that only 'new' matters. To my mind, there are a lot of 'old' ideas in development that have a lot of value. Many of them we don't do, but if we did, we'd make a whole lot more positive impact. Like, taking the time to understand context, listening to the people we're working with, having long-term engagements and focusing on relationships. These are (almost) all things you describe as being necessary for successful innovation. We don't do these things well at the moment. What does this mean for innovation? I guess the point is, like all ideas in development, it depends on how it gets implemented. I won't go any further, as talking about implementation brings me to the innovationXchange, and here I risk descending into unhelpful ranting. Thanks again for an excellent, thought-provoking blog.

Thanks Grant and Caryn, this is a really interesting paper. I wonder, based on this, what your thoughts are on where aid donors/the development industry should be investing when it comes to anti-corruption work? If the return on an investment in corruption education is going to be affected by the perceived level of institutional response/effectiveness, then it would seem to suggest that more attention on institution strengthening is the way to go. But surely, and particularly in the PNG case, that would be a politically difficult path to take for donors (...which is perhaps why they are more willing to invest in education). Seems like a really tricky situation in which to be effective?

Related to several of the issues that Ferguson raises, Chris Blattman recently wrote a <a href="http://chrisblattman.com/2015/06/25/dear-governments-and-aid-agencies-please-stop-hurting-poor-people-with-your-skills-training-programs/" rel="nofollow">blog</a> and <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2622220" rel="nofollow">review paper</a> (coauthored with Laura Ralston) on some of the problems with skills training programs and employment generation in the Global South.

What can be grasped from this program that government managed to relocate the community to one place with substandard housing. The problem is: who live there and what they do for their living. This simple question will drag our views on infrastructure provision versus equity. In one part, the government has put an effort to solve the housing problem in some Sucos. However, the plan without any deeper assessment took place. People who lived there might be impoverished class and farmers who subsistence from agricultural cultivation. For them might be difficult to maintain this type of prefabricated housing, and where to keep their pigs, goats and other pastoral products. Meanwhile, there is no spaces and sheds provided to store them. I have been to one of these locations, no water connection there and absent from bitumen roads. This can be claimed as "Palliative Plan", which indicates that the plan is not solving the root of housing problem, instead to help the local more expose to other problems such accessibility, mobility and deprivation. I would suggest, one of the solutions, it might be more plausible to subsidise the communities in the Sucos with some funds for upgrading their existing housing, privies, and provide communal water source (Lavanderia). At the same time promote comparative advantage of the area for it sustainability.

A recent, and excellent, article arguing why the best innovations happen when you don't try: http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/is-the-best-way-to-be-innovative-not-to-try/

Agreed with the article

Agree.

Thanks for this post, Jo! Related to this, in case you (and other readers) haven't seen it already, Devex and PSI recently <a href="http://psiimpact.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Devex-infographic_FINAL.pdf" rel="nofollow">released results</a> of a survey on 'what the next generation of development professionals will look like'. However, I was disappointed to see there's no specific mention of cross-cultural competence, either as a key 'approach' or a 'soft skill' that development professionals will need.

Yes, it will but it is worth it. We know from the accommodation trial that there is virtually zero interest in this sector in hiring SWP workers. I don't see why tourism would be different to accommodation. So good to get backpackers out of horticulture -- where a significant number of employers are already interested in hiring SWP workers -- into accommodation and tourism.

Thanks for the article Stephen. Do you think that the shift of backpackers away from horticulture to tourism will mean that any expansion of the SWP to tourism, construction, and aged care (as demanded by the Pacific Island Countries under PACER-Plus negotiations) will undermine Pacific employment in those sectors?

While the withdrawal of Australian commitments to the 3MDF Fund in Myanmar is extremely regrettable, there are serious inaccuracies in the following sentence that should be corrected: "One can imagine the dismay the Australian decision would have caused on the part of the Myanmar Government, which had fought long and hard to keep the scheme going after a premature and politically-driven US Congress decision in 2005 to withdraw from an earlier version of the program, the World Health Organisation’s Global Fund." First, there was no such entity as the World Health Organisation’s Global Fund. The author is probably referring to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has nothing to do with WHO. Second, the US Congress had nothing to do with the decision by the Secretariat of the Global Fund to withdraw from Myanmar, an action recommended by the then Principal Recipient in Myanmar, the United Nations Development Programme. Third, following the withdrawal of the Global Fund, a group of donors (including Australia) established the Three Diseases Fund for Burma, the forerunner of 3MDG. I was a member of the 3DF Board and it is quite an exaggeration to say that the Myanmar Government " fought long and hard to keep the scheme going." Indeed, between 2006 and 2012, the Government was hostile to the Fund because it did not channel funds directly to the Government. It obstructed access to field sites, tried to cancel the first annual review, and stationed security officers outside Board meetings. Obviously, the political climate has changed and 3MDG is now welcomed by the Myanmar Government. Australia's abrupt withdrawal from the Fund is short-sighted and will indeed affect relationships with the Myanmar Government and fellow donors. But let's ensure that views are based on the facts.

Thanks Terence for an excellent critique. I remember being quite sceptical when I read Booth's blog post - you've done a good job of outlining some of the problems with such economic determinism. An argument that I find very convincing, and which is of increasing popularity (and one that you flag briefly), is that different forms of governance are appropriate for different stages of development. It is hard to imagine that the same institutions are needed in both (i) the 'catch-up' stages of economic development, where the key objective is to accumulate capital and move toward the technology frontier, and (ii) later stages of development where research and competition are more important. Yet this is what much of the debate on institutions and growth has assumed - as have the many cross-country regressions linking growth to different measures of institutional quality. David Dollar has <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2015/05/31/what-institutions-do-asian-countries-need-to-keep-growing/" rel="nofollow">just written</a> on this very theme. This is also a point made by Acemoglu and Robinson in Why Nations Fail - i.e., that 'extractive economic institutions' can achieve growth to a point (as did USSR), but that later stages of development (beyond a certain level of GDP per capita - around $8000) require 'inclusive economic institutions'. I'm not convinced by their argument that Chinese growth will stagnate due to the absence of 'inclusive economic institutions' - to me seems too much like wishful liberal thinking, conflates economic institutions with political institutions, and assumes that there is only one model of 'inclusive instutitions' (periodic democratic elections for key leadership). But I do accept their broader argument that different institutions are needed for different periods of economic development.