Comments

This is an excellent piece of research, congratulations. It is great to finally have an evidence base in this discussion, and your findings gel with the impressions I've received from casual discussions over a number of years.

Thanks to both of you for this post which does a great job in cutting through a lot of the innuendo that surrounds this issue. I'd be interested to know to what extent, if any, the increased effects of Chinese development assistance has influenced how traditional donors, in particular Australia, whether in terms of what they fund or how they engage with Pacific island governments.

I agree with Ludwing that the economic woes in the third world countries will not be alleviated by foreign aid but economically empowering the people.

Thanks for highlighting the importance and the potential for innovation in the aid program Danielle and Mel. I agree with your view that “The traditional aid investment cycle of design-review-deliver-monitor-evaluate can contribute to delivery inflexibility”. I would like to add that the ability to innovate on the Australian aid program is largely determined by how DFAT assesses and rewards innovation at the tender stage. It is good to see DFAT moving away from the ‘boiler-plate’ Request for Tenders (RFTs) to allow more flexibility - such as we’ve seen this week with the release of a more innovative RFT to attract organisations interested in providing services for the large program of ‘Support to Improved Local Level Service Delivery and Economic Growth in Indonesia’. DFID is very good at asking tenderers to be innovative. And they reward innovation in their assessments of bids. After a couple of years of exposure to DFID tenders in London, I came away with the feeling along the lines of: ‘DFID provides about 20 pages of a Business Case and asks tenderers to write 200 pages; DFAT provides 200 pages of a Scope of Services and asks tenderers to write 20’. Obviously, there is more scope for innovation by the implementers in the former scenario. The new DFAT RFTs, like the ‘Support to Improved Local Level Service Delivery and Economic Growth in Indonesia’, are providing a better balance, and I encourage DFAT to keep this up. Maybe we will see some of the innovations that you mention in your two articles appearing in the program at the design stage as well - like SIBs and Impact Investing.

It seems Senator Lambie is on a crusade on this. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/peter-dutton-crossbenchers-doctors-come-round-7-fee" rel="nofollow">From The Guardian last week</a>: "Hockey met with the Tasmanian PUP senator Jacqui Lambie, who told him the party would “hold firm” against budget savings that would hurt average Australian households. But Lambie said she had suggested during the 2.5 hour meeting that the government make even greater cuts to foreign aid. The Coalition has already budgeted foreign aid savings of $7.6bn over five years – a measure that does not require legislation."

Most of the women in Papua New Guinea do not migrate into urban peripheries such as Port Moresby. This is because of the increasing transport costs and also may be due to uneven economic wealth shared by the family members. Those women who migrate into Port Moresby and continue to live in adhoc settlements are single mothers and others may be sex workers. On the other hand, women also migrate because of wantokism or else to baby sit for some relatives working in the cities for instance in Port Moresby. Migration status for women in Papua New Guinea is culturally determined.In most cases migration is undertaken by males. Females are restricted because of their safety and other related demographic and non-demographic variables.

Tom, Margaret I enjoyed reading this post and am looking forward to reading your book, Tom. I am, however, somewhat intrigued by your closing statement. While your last answer opens to discuss private philanthropy, your very last paragraph might be easily misinterpreted; though I acknowledge what you said might be exactly you meant. You comment on a consequence of the “dismantling of AusAID” that there is a loss of long-term experience and knowledge from a “group of people with experience of development programs over a long period and the lessons to be learnt from this experience.” However, you also comment that you are not convinced such is readily available in the private sector. I am not sure by what definition you are referring to ‘private sector’ in this context. It would be a limited view, I suggest, to not acknowledge at least one dimension of the private sector, that being traditional implementing partners to the Australian aid program (who also serve many other donors) in also having people (still) with experience of development programs and lessons learnt over a long period...some have come from the former AusAID so maybe not is all lost! Maybe you were just referring to some private philanthropists. Maybe your comment was dealing with the Gates Q&A and role of government versus the private sector in leading on simple versus complex tasks, respectfully. Not all intellectual property exists in an aid agency; it never has nor should it. Better harnessing of the combined and different experiences from across the aid/development sector actors should be a priority. I, for one, am convinced of the importance of the experiences of the traditional private sector implementing partners.

While I have aired my thoughts on some of the issues with the volunteer program before on this blog, I also can't pan AYADs universally because I have seen some really talented ones, and some people who have turned their AYAD experience into the base for a career where they are making substantive contributions. Hopefully the recruitment process will still capture such people, even when they are under 30. I do see great benefits from young people engaging in the region--I was incredibly fortunate to land a job in Jakarta at the age of 23 and it was a life-shaping experience. I think a supported 'internships' type program could be valuable, where younger Australians have the opportunity to work for partners in developing countries that are adequately resourced to support and utilise them. Something like this might more adequately acknowledge that the intern is inexperienced and is reaping benefits from the experience, rather than the idea of a 'volunteer', which implies someone giving something up to help. Though perhaps these opportunities shouldn't be funded out of ODA. The New Colombo Plan looks set to offer the opportunity for internships, but at the moment it is explicitly tied to study (i.e. you have to be an undergraduate student to be eligible). It would be good to see wider opportunities for early career professionals to engage.

As a former AVID who saw a lot of AYADs in country, I would have to say that I agree with shenqow. Ultimately, the best outcomes for beneficiary countries are going to come from people with considerable professional experience, rather than poorly trained volunteers. I'd like to see the program go even higher up the skills ladder, though this could be difficult. AYAD was good for Australians, but was fairly poor for the rest of the world. We can do better. <a href="http://aidspeak.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/once-more-from-the-top/" rel="nofollow">This article</a> conveys the same ideas in much harsher language.

I have to say I do not mourn the end of AYAD. Unlike AVI and other schemes, AYAD was conceived (by former FM Downer) and operated as a supply-driven scheme aimed at creating opportunities for well-meaning and experience-seeking young Australians. Providing actually skilled people to really assist receiving countries and organisations was a secondary goal at best. Living and working in Asia and the Pacific in recent years, I saw lots of genuine and some very capable young people come out as AYADs. The AYADs almost always had a marvelous experience. But the skills and experience they provided to their "beneficiaries" was, sadly, often negligible. At times, they were in fact a burden on their resource-strapped "partners". Exposing young Australians to developing countries and issues is undoubtedly a great idea. But at a time when the aid budget is being slashed, funding working holidays for young Aussies is not an optimal spend of scarce development dollars.

Scott, Well, that provoked your fury. But your criticism is mainly of our (imputed) motives. You make only two criticisms of substance. One is that we ignore loadings for expats. Correct. We are interested in why Papua New Guineans move from the university to other jobs. The other is that we use PPPs to compare salaries across countries. How else should make such comparisons? There is no other way, which is precisely why PPPs are always used for such comparisons and more broadly for standard-of-living comparisons across countries. And there is nothing casual about our empirical methods. No-one else has undertaken this analysis before, at least not in public. I think we made a pretty good first effort. If there are flaws, your commentary doesn't reveal them. Of course, salaries are not the only thing that matters. Other reforms are also needed. I agree that UPNG should fix up its website. But it does now have wireless. I used it quite satisfactorily during the PNG Update in June. Your most useful point is that allowances paid to some academics may make others unhappy. It is hard, given the international comparisons, to make the case for an across-the-board increase. But I accept that this might be a second best. Regards, Stephen

In their plea for so-called pay increases where there is competition, Messrs Wangi and Howes do not note that UPNG has had employment differentials between staff, including wages and salaries, for many years. Under various names there have been loadings particularly for expatriate staff,. These amounts in excess of the wages and salaries paid to indigenous staff are usually justified on the grounds that the international demand (ie competition) for more highly trained academics makes it necessary to offer internationally comparable rates of remuneration. No other employment policy has caused more dissatisfaction and dissension at UPNG and many other universities. To add another layer of differentiation as advocated by the writers would make UPNG an even less satisfactory workplace than it already is. To urge that this be explicitly done in one or even some areas of the university, such as economics which is the clear academic preference (bias?) of Messrs Wangi and Howes, merely shows what people trained outside their discipline have known for years. The market is a social, political-ideological construct. Why economics over politics? Does PNG not need better trained politicians and public servants, as well as people working for NGOs? Lawyers? Health workers and teachers? Mathematicians? Statisticians? Is there any evidence that these academic disciplines at what is still primarily a teaching university have lesser need for highly trained, dedicated teachers? Any evidence that the competition for staff in these areas is any less than for economists when the over-all standard of teaching staff across the whole university desperately needs improvement? As one who has written at length about the parlous state of UPNG, I have previously provided ample evidence that shows teaching of politics at UPNG is in a similar if not worse state than Messrs and Howe suggest for economics. However among the many proposals for change I have advocated, preferential wage and salary arrangements for politics staff have not been among them. That all staff in these and other disciplines, no matter how dedicated, are unable to raise their standards of teaching to an international level when there is effectively no internet, no library, little maintenance of teaching spaces or student accommodation, every incentive to avoid teaching through consultancies, and serious deficiencies of managerial leadership. (Does anyone recall the promise made at the ANU by the recently appointed current VC that his first task would be to bring the UPNG website up to date? Check it out-last updated in March 2007. Then for those interested in simplistic comparisons compare with USP's website.) Finally, a methodological criticism of the casual empiricism which Messrs Wangi and Howes use to construct a sole indicator for wage comparability across countries. The PPP (purchasing power parity) device should never be used in this manner. There are more reasons than can be given here why it should ALWAYS be used with other measures. Among them are currency fluctuations, absence of temporal changes in relative wages and the comparative merit of items included and not included in the measures, as well as locational considerations. Anyone who ever uses data employing the PPP should at least show some humility about the usefulness of the data provided.