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It's a good question Terence! I don't have an answer though. It does make you wonder which countries Australians think should have their aid allocations cut? I thought Indonesia would be a prime target, but perhaps it does show that when it comes to specifics people are more timid? Perhaps people have misconceptions that we give aid to China or other larger economies and that should be reduced? Perhaps they balk more at the idea of multilateral aid (i.e. to the UN) rather than aid Australia delivers itself bilaterally? Perhaps the frequent trips that Australians make to SE Asia, including Indonesia (particularly Bali), means there is more support for aid to those countries? There's so many questions! The Australian public seems rather fickle, yet this survey seems to show they are much less retaliatory than some of the media coverage in recent weeks would have you think. I guess it does provide some further backing to previous surveys showing that Australians <a href="https://devpolicy.org/in-brief/75-of-australians-think-poverty-reduction-most-important-for-aid-lowy-poll-20140604/" rel="nofollow">think aid should be predominantly about poverty alleviation</a> rather than foreign policy objectives.

Thanks Ashlee, Here's a puzzle: does this mean, given that it appears Australians are somewhat supportive of aid cuts more generally, that they want Indonesia spared at the expense of the rest of the world, or does the finding suggest that Australians are supportive of cuts in the most general sense, but the moment they are confronted with specifics they baulk? Terence

Hello, Given that the majority of economic growth in 2014 was due, almost exclusively to construction and projects funded by development partners, I would suggest that delays to pipeline projects must be avoided. The ADB is forecasting a contraction, but its figures are based on the continuation of existing projects. Any scenario where major projects are placed on hold or stopped altogether would then result in a much greater domestic contraction than currently predicted.The generation of economic activity that results from major projects must not be underestimated for the long-term good of the Vanuatu economy and is in the interests of everybody. Whether good or bad, tourism still makes up a massive slice of GDP (or exports depending upon how its measured). The research clearly shows that a decline in tourism is largely due to declining infrastructure and major projects such as the Vanuatu Tourism Infrastructure Project and the Port Vila Urban Development Project must proceed at full pace to recover tourist numbers and provide employment and stimulate commercial activity. In addition to these projects, the Vanuatu Interisland Shipping Support Project must not be further delayed as this project shines above all the others in the analysis for improved domestic and export growth. The reasoning behind all of these projects is solid, so the decision to divert any funds or activities from these critical projects needs to be seriously measured against the longer term outcomes. Politically, its a no-win scenario but I believe that a larger vision is required to determine the greater good. I'm hoping that donor groups also support this view.

Anyone who does analysis or predictions based on the World Bank's $1.25 2005 PPP line inherits all of the flaws that go into that measure. One question is whether the line as such is drawn at a plausible level. That is, does it makes sense to say that a person on $1.26 2005 PPP is out of extreme poverty. It does not. One way to see this is to understand the method for setting the line. The World Bank simply averages the poverty lines of the world's poorest countries. Another way to see this is to see what development outcome are like at the poverty line. David Woodward's work on this problem is the best out there: http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/how-poor-is-poor . A second question is what goes into making conversions between years and across currencies. Currently, the prices of all goods consumed are used to adjust for inflation and to convert to the base currency. This implausibly makes some goods that are totally out of the reach of poor people, such as flat screen tvs, relevant to determining poverty levels. It also thereby under-weights the effect price changes for goods which make up a larger portion of the budgets of the worst off, such as basic foodstuffs.

The video is not available in some locations. Alternative link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVG6otoVMFk

Hi again Milford, "The fact is – and I think you MUST know this – research results are skewed all the time in the service of hidden agendas." Research results are skewed some of the time (if it really was all of the time we should cease to pay attention to any research -- be it Scott's, Ferguson's or your own). And even then, only some of the time is the bias a by-product of vested interests, rather than ideology and the other issues I've listed above. And I haven't ignored the research you've linked to -- I've simply pointed out that none the work that you've linked to which I've had time to read provides evidence to back up your allegations against Roodman and Karlan, or your sweeping claims about the motivations of people promoting micro-finance. Your book might -- I've only read your review of Roodman's book (which didn't), but you're not doing a great job of convincing me to take the time to read your book. It's a busy world and if you can't provide good evidence here, then you're not going to persuade me at least. Perhaps other readers will feel differently though. All the best Terence

Hi Glad to hear there are suggestions that some of the big infrastructure programs already in the place need to be reconsidered - some common sense ? Priorities have changed completely since PAM so nothing should be off the table. Some projects - like a second Wharf for Port Vila and the outer island wharfs (this has been tried before) are questionable even in good times so lets review it all and free up some resources for reconstruction.

Hi Terence I was not planning any further comment on this blog posting, but your breathtakingly naïve or else deliberately misleading – can’t decide which it is - reply has changed my mind. You state, yet again, and this time with even more force, that I am claiming conspiracy and you repeat your view that, essentially, whatever any of the high-profile researchers and institutions say is the reality, then this is the reality, period. I confess to being amazed at how hard you are trying to rubbish my views to the point where you make such silly statements about conspiracy. The fact is – and I think you MUST know this – research results are skewed all the time in the service of hidden agendas. Are you really quite unaware of high-profile researchers like James Ferguson and James Scott who pretty convincingly show that a yawning gap generally exists between the declared objective of any particular policy intervention and the hidden political agenda that lies behind that particular policy intervention? You seem unaware, or else unwilling to concede in your current position, that all of the big development agencies have political agendas and often aggressively pursue these agendas irrespective of the facts and that this very often involves manipulating research results, (or asking the researchers to do it for them) in order to get support for the policies they were always planning to put into practice anyway. Have you not seen ‘Inside Job’? Was it a conspiracy that so many academics took big bucks to write wrongly supportive reports for the Wall Street’s big banks, or was it simply an accident on their part? In nearly all my postings here I also linked to my own research outputs in which I try to make my case, yet you ignore this completely, clearly don’t consult any of my outputs, and then continue to state that I provided no evidence. I am stumped as to how to respond to this tactic. Is this really what a blog should be doing? I thought it was all about constructive debate and the willingness to listen to heterodox views and fairly represent these views to the audience. I am so reminded of my time in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s as a young PhD student collecting data on small business policy there, and having discussions with many visiting Russian economists in the same dormitory. So many of them argued that central planning was basically fine, just had a few problems around the edges, and the evidence they quoted for this view was the large amount of supportive research emerging from the research units attached to or funded by the Communist Party. My view, and others there, was that this research simply could not be trusted since everyone knew that the incentives to manipulate the data in order to come up with supportive views - foreign trips, nice apartment, access to hard currency, career progression, etc – were simply so strong. Moreover, there was also a lot of quality research to show that just such a scenario was indeed playing out and that the incentives did pervert the course of research in Russia in order to build up a false picture of the success of central planning. And yes, I was called a conspiracy theorist for suggesting such outrageous things were very likely going on and that we needed to be very careful what some researchers were saying and why! I guess I can’t win, then and now…… Milford

Hi Dennis, Your project to convert waste to energy sounds very interesting. I have been doing research on waste management and in particular garbage removal in Port Moresby and astounded by the lack of a policy and limited support or support that is taking forever. Look forward to hearing more on your project soon. Keep up the good work. I also have some ideas of addressing the problem, starting small and getting traction to upscale and address the bigger issue. All the very best. Now that JICA is already working on the Baruni Landfill feasibility that should at least pave the way for better dumping but the heart of the problem lies with each of us being responsible at home, as a start to having a healthy city and environment.

Hi Milford, Sorry for my slow reply - last week was hectic. To be clear, I'm not calling you a conspiracy theorist (of the 'George Bush ordered 9-11' type) and yet you are alleging conspiracy everywhere, from David Roodman conspiring with CGD's funders to write a less critical book, to USAID and the World Bank seeking to impose microfinance on developing countries for the benefit of donor country vested interests. Likewise, you allege that the DFID funded review finds that the evidence base for microfinance was lacking. Agreed. But all sorts of development work goes ahead with an insufficient evidence base. Sometimes this is the by-product of vested interests conspiring to shape policy (this certainly seems to have been an issue back home in New Zealand for aspects of the the NZ aid programme in recent years). But it can also be a by-product of mistaken beliefs and the zeal that so many people (not just of a free market bent) bring to matters development. As for evidence -- you have provided a lot of links. But nothing to substantiate the claims that really need substantiating at this point in time: your allegations against Roodman and Karlan. The DFID funded review, Roodman's book, and the papers I linked to above all benefit from the fact that the evidence for their arguments is clearly accessible. Sure, it's harder to do this when writing a blog comment, but not impossible, as I hope readers will agree on the basis of my initial blog post. Cheers Terence

Just a note that Australia is <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/citizenship-for-sale-government-explores-pricebased-immigration-system-20150503-1myvwk.html" rel="nofollow">now considering something similar apparently</a>!! Was in the news this morning...

Social structures in our society are breaking down faster than we think because of ignorance by generational behaviour thing. Free education is abused by implementors and legitimate processes are undermined by nepotism. Corruption disorients good governance. In the last 20 years the has been a mixed bag of leaps and bounds really because we tried too hard, became too greedy, or our policies were simply inferior. More so just a fast lane thing. Never mind how we got here we burst on regardless