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Really uncontrolled waste disposal is becoming a norm in everywhere and Port Moresby is already being affected by this. Plastics and other wastes are dump everywhere without properly disposed off in the designated location. Hope something has to be done to educate our city residents to properly managed unnecessary dumping of was

It is RIGHT that the Australian Government cut its aid to GPE. It should FREEZE its aid. No criticism of Julia Gillard, who is new to GPE and just doesn't yet understand what a Potemkin Village the organization is. But she needs to get up to speed - fast, or her reputation will be damaged. GPE is NOT focused on RESULTS and peer-reviewed evaluation and monitoring which would reveal how little children are learning as the result of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent, now totally in billions! It is a disgrace. The original idea was for a small secretariat for GPE of say 10, max. TODAY it has 70 (!) staff, who even at this high number, do NOT have expertise at assessing learning! Plus dozens of consultants for p.r. and communication, etc. The CEO earns $400,000 plus, and it's top managers $250K-300K gross. It's reducing poverty, all right...... one World Bank salary at a time. And where are the WB "supervisors" who are responsible for this trust fund? Specifically the Director of Education of the World Bank?? What are they DOING about this. They are complicit in this mess. They are absent without leave and afraid to criticise. It is heartbreaking to think of how much money could help young kids to learn, especially girls, and which goes down the drain into first-world salaries worthy of banking executives. Again, read this detailed critique of GPE by the respected www.100r.org, published just this week and the truly pathetic responses of Australian major figure at GPE Charles Tapp. disgrace. Click on <a href="http://100r.org/2014/06/left-back-results-lacking-as-global-partnership-seeks-support-for-education/" rel="nofollow">this link</a>. And look at The Washington Post <a href="http://100r.org/2013/11/former-usaid-official-accused-of-contract-rigging-now-coo-at-world-bank-trust-fund-on-education/" rel="nofollow">reports </a>on the COO who Alice Albright appointed last summer!

Foreign aid is very important for the economy, we gain strategic partners and our <a href="http://borgenproject.org/foreign-aid/" rel="nofollow">economy</a> is also benefiting in a long run.

Mr. Duncan, it would appear, has been misled by someone with regards to the purpose of the Alternative Indicators of Well-being for Melanesia project. The project proposes a set of indicators to supplement existing progressive measures accepted internationally by governments and aid agencies like those found in the Human Development Index that Mr. Duncan likes so much. The supplementary and, yes, alternative indicators do not replace current measures of development and well-being. They provide, rather, a regional cultural context to an otherwise Western value-based set of indicators devoid of comparative significance with the rest of the world. The most important, and perhaps most threatening, aspect of this project to define, collect and apply indicators of well-being that reflect Melanesian values is that they are the only indicators developed by the people these governments aim to serve.

And meanwhile at the National Court, there have been some very hasty new appointments to the judiciary...

Thanks Tess. I do agree that political compromise will be domestic. Political compromise will be both about sorting out rifts within the State institutions - legal, police etc as well as balancing the various ethnic and provincial affiliations/interests in PNG. And to highlight this, <a href="http://dev.postcourier.com.pg/Stories/chimbu-protestors-give-pm-ultimatum/#.U6tqMrF-_IU" rel="nofollow">today’s PNG Post courier</a> has the following story on response from Chimbu province where a number of the prominent players in the PNG “Game of Thrones” hail from. This group is based in Kundiawa the provincial centre of Chimbu province and the key political leverage here is the threat to close down the Highlands Highway. The article reads: "...The people of Chimbu have given an ultimatum of 48 hours to Peter O’Neill to resign as Prime Minister. In a protest rally in Kundiawa yesterday they threatened to block the Highlands Highway as of tomorrow afternoon if Mr O’Neill failed to resign or step aside to allow police to interview him on the K71.8 million Paul Paraka payout. The people, led by pressure group Voice Of Chimbu, also called on the Prime Minister to consider reinstating Sir Tom Kulunga, Simon Kauba, Kerenga Kua, Thomas Eluh and Sam Koim, and the Task Force Sweep..." And in the meantime police appear to be struggling to contain momentum for public protest but we wait and see how the day unfolds.

This is a very insightful item Luke and whilst it is largely addressed to NZ as a donor to Vanuatu (and other RSE participating Pacific island countries) there are important messages for others. To the Vanuatu government and others involved in the current round of development planning, which 'must be homegrown' - how can the 'poverty of opportunity' you have identified be categorised, quantified and addressed with currently available resources, including human capital. And to other donors, notably Australia - here is a great opportunity to put coordination into practice. While you are working out how to make your labour mobility scheme work properly, here are some opportunities to assist communities in maximising the benefits of what is already in place.

I enjoyed reading your article and think you raise some good points and deliver them in interesting/engaging ways... The section where a call is made for 'change [to] be based on evidence, and significantly more resources be devoted to evaluation], than now also caused me to reflect a bit... Perhaps it is a truism to say that aid agencies can never be separated from the political context in which they're embedded - and that politicians of a day generally have markedly different agendas than aid agencies. Those that don't are few in number and seemingly (sadly), constrained by this alongside systems functioning as they do... In this context I think more evaluation might only further stultify things happening in the field. Too often already it seems that evaluation are done only to later gather dust, particularly as presiding politicians/the political context change/s... And that money is often wasted with the trash at the end of a budget cycle to get rid of it... (Plus the intra-agency largesse that this can create...). How does this change...?/How do people exert agency to make change, be change...? These are 'BIG' questions indeed as you say in my opinion, and similar to so many others that are important and have been important... I think we can agree that more scrutiny of 'evidence' is needed - or rather that scrutiny needs to lead, perhaps, to particular radical outcomes being pursued or achieved... Questions question though right... That's philosophy... There is a balance between conceptualizing and taking action...

Thanks Michelle for this insightful analysis which provides some really important context and highlights that in PNG (as in Fiji) the final determinants of power relations are domestic rather than external. I also think that your analysis plus other comments from Bal Kama indicate that the major constitutional damage that we witnessed in 2011/12 prior to the elections was never properly resolved and some of that is coming back into play.

Thanks for this response which I think highlights a very important issue - that economic growth is only really growth where it is achieved without causing damage to the environment and the social fabric, not least in communities that are still moving through the post-conflict space.

Not sure if people saw this but Indonesia has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-19/an-sby-in-fiji-pidf/5535892?section=australianetworknews" rel="nofollow">pledged</a> $20m to help Pacific Islands fight climate change. So Indonesia (a large aid recipient) is stepping into the gap vacated by Australia. Interesting times!

Clearly aid agencies are not providing education to their supporters if the information in the article has people believing aid is more about humanitarian relief than ongoing development and if some believe we spend 16% of our budget on aid. Perhaps aid agencies need to ask questions about what they are communicating in their marketing.