Comments

Deep and intriguing writing Joel. Thanks for this. The sly moves for the Security Council seat are so clearly visible from your graph - fabulously stark. I felt enthused by your final paragraph ....

Joel, this is a great piece - if all else fails you can always get a job as an obit writer. My concern, and I imagine yours, is that there will be a need for many more human obituaries as a result of these cuts and the move away from assisting the poorest.

Here, here re the mockery of the performance framework. Well put, Matthew.

Really, it could be worse?? How? Duh, of course, until the aid budget is 0%. Is that what we'll be saying until 'worst' happens? Aspirations can be higher, I would hope. I'm with Chris on the merits of looking at the ecosystem. My perspective, having moved here 2.5 years ago from Europe, is that the ecosystem for interest in and work on development here is very much poorer than in many European countries, including the UK. Debates are few, research is limited, players are few, public interest is extremely low, policy is pretty dreadful.

Great piece Joel. That graph clearly demonstrates the Security Council motivation for Australia's increased aid to Africa in the period 2009 to 2012. It is a classic demonstration of the use of aid for diplomatic purposes and should be used in international development courses. I had hoped that at least some of the aid increase was because sub-Saharan Africa contains most of the world's poorest countries - looks like I was wrong. I was teaching at Makerere University in Uganda when aid started to increase. It was an exciting time to be an Australian in Africa. Now it's embarrassing!

The question about 'why we were as a nation unable to sustain our increased generosity' is an important one. Duncan Green suggests in this <a href="http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/why-is-britain-such-an-outlier-on-aid/" rel="nofollow">blog post</a> that one reason the UK has been an outlier is because it is has a rich ecosystem and 'busy Aid and Development cluster'. This he argues has led to not just sustained campaign pressure, but also an 'underlying critical mass of knowledge, interest, concern and consensus'. Is this what Australia currently lacks, and if so could we all be doing more to help create it?

Thanks Stephen You're right. It isn't fair and it's pretty bad, but it could be worse. Given the general policy direction of the coalition government, however, I think we probably need to assume that things will get worse before they get better.

It looks like my call that 'it looks likely that the UK will have a weak, coalition government' was wrong: such are the pitfalls of punditry and listening to pollsters! The results: Conservatives won 331 seats and a slim majority; SNP had a virtual clean sweep in Scotland; Labour and the Lib Dems were devastated; and right-wing UKIP won just one seat. After the elections, Radio Australia <a href="http://m.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/reelected-conservatives-unlikely-to-change-aid-policy-despite-slim-majority/1445844" rel="nofollow">asked me</a> whether the new UK government will target foreign aid in the same way the Abbott government has done in Australia. As explained in my blog, I don't think this is likely: - the UK's 0.7% of GNI aid target is enshrined in law; - the Conservatives have made a strong case for aid and have ownership of DFID's success; and - politically, they only have a narrow majority and other challenges to deal with (EU, Scotland). Yesterday, David Cameron announced his new Cabinet: retaining Justine Greening as Secretary of State for International Development. I think this is a good move and one that will provide continuity for the delivery of the UK’s (GBP12.6bn, approx. AUD25bn) aid program. The transition was less smooth for DFID's junior minister. If you had a bad day yesterday, spare a thought for <a href="https://twitter.com/DesmondSwayne/status/597697961737453568" rel="nofollow">this guy</a>...

Update on damage estimates: The Vanuatu Council of Ministers on Friday issued a statement that referred to the establishment of a ‘fund mobilisation strategic framework’ to raise revenue of approximately 50 billion Vatu. No further detail was provided, and it is unclear whether this revenue would be spent by government. It is nonetheless probably safe to say that this figure is based on the (not yet released) economic damage assessment that has been underway for several weeks. Damage in the order to 50 billion Vatu equates to around $590 million AUD, or 56 percent of Vanuatu’s GDP, making the damage caused by this cyclone considerably greater than Cyclone Evan in 2012.

Thanks Tony. You raise a number of good points. I agree that the debt/GDP ratio considered on its own is potentially misleading, particularly in the medium term. Revenue raising capability is clearly an important consideration – as can be seen in the fact that Samoa has managed to accommodate a large debt (well over 50 percent of GDP last time I checked) – and is lacking in Vanuatu. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that debt to GDP is merely academic, though (and I say that as an academic!) It still features prominently in budget documents and the article IV reports. Debt to GDP is useful as an indicator of the government’s ability to repay debt over the long-term, as the government can widen its revenue base in the future (and in the case of Vanuatu, the government should really expand its revenue base in the long-term). The long-term implications of these loans are important, given that they are of a 30-40 year duration. Other indicators have their own problems, of course, which are partly due to how they are reported in the budget. The budget forward estimates include data on debt servicing, but only to 2017. We chose not to use them, as they don’t provide any information on the loans now being taken out, given that these loans include grace periods that extend beyond 2017 (and so are not reflected in debt servicing forecasts). Thanks again. Matt

Hi Stuart, Good to hear from you, and thanks for this contribution. I don't have a problem with the government spending more on aid for growth or trade, as long as it is well-spent. PNG is in desperate need of many things, as you point out, but one of them is employment creation, which is presumably what aid for trade would aim at. I do want to take exception with your praise of the free health policy. As our extensive field-based research has shown (under the PEPE project with NRI), free health is only going to make a bad system worse. See <a href="https://devpolicy.org/financing-health-facilities-and-the-free-health-policy-in-png-challenges-and-risks-part-2-20140715/" rel="nofollow">this blog</a> and the report on which it is based. I noticed that the World Bank in its recent East Asia and Pacific Update also praised PNG's free health policy. It's a pity when policy judgments are made ignoring the available evidence. Regards, Stephen

The Lukautim Pikinini (Child Protection) Act was passed in 2007 and revised in 2009. This contemporary, rights-based legislation focuses Government priority on the prevention of child abuse and neglect through the strengthening of community child protection mechanisms. The violation of child rights is a child protection risk that warrants a statutory response. The Australian Government would do well to assist PNG with implementation of the Act, a very challenging and difficult task. Australia can make a huge difference to assisting PNG with the prevention of diseases like diarrhoea which is a major killer of children under 5 years, through the development of water and sanitation programs including the elimination of open defecation as is practised throughout PNG. As Stuart Schaefer says, no child should die from preventable illnesses, especially when there are simple and low-cost solutions that can help. Eliminating open defecation must be central to our development efforts.