Comments

The Voice Inc. is a very important initiative that is been operating in PNG's institutions. As an individual I acknowledge Ms Serena for setting the foundation for young Papua New Guineans who will be able to develop themselves as responsible citizens through this program. Let's start teaching the young elites and our country's future will be safe and secured.

When the external environment that a program is sitting within changes, whether that be political shifts or changes to the needs or another factor, there will of course be the requirement to restructure or divert from the original design. Over time, in engaging more deeply with stakeholders and partners, learning should emerge which can feed into improvements for a program. For 'successful' programs that effectively deliver against an original design and don't evolve over time, I wonder whether there are missed opportunities to achieve even greater impact and stronger outcomes. Restructuring might be more the symptom/visual cue, but not necessarily the cause of improvements in effectiveness- I would question if restructuring per se creates better-than-average performing projects, or whether that's more attributable to teams capturing learning from a program throughout implementation, which in some cases is reflected through a program restructuring or complete program redesign. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why the author's found the outcomes were only partly attributable to the variables assessed. There is a need to look at things more holistically and contextually.

Not clear what the "new evidence" is. That a "restructured program would perform better than one not restructured? Many projects undergo restructuring during implementation exactly to manage performance. Projects that are on track fortunately don't need restructuring; so suggesting that restructured projects are likely to perform better is like saying that projects on track are more likely to fail. Then the revolutionary finding about the negative correlation between the cost of project design and supervision and project outcomes, which suggests that the lower this cost the higher the outcomes. Not only is this counter-intuitive, it also contradicts elementary principles of project design and management.

Dear Roger, It's strange when you look at the 50+ years of ODA, that we are back where it started. Aid was crowdsourced / crowdfunded mostly through religious missions and some economic development. Other initial forms of aid were really "tied" to a colonizing countries benefit. When the hat was passed on to the Private DAC club....it became a "us" and "them" - did it have an impact?? sure...through money at anything it will have an impact!! The question is = Was it strategic and effective?? the answer would be NO. As we return to the previous hyper-individual model, there is a sense that it will be more effective but still without any mechanism to measure collective impact. The private sector think they could do better - the new faces of development are "Lifebuoy", Coca Cola, SAB MIller, etc! As if they can't produce soap locally and drink fresh juices! I have nothing against corporate participation but again...it sucks money out of the local economy. It doesn't really create a meaningful impact. The new discussion at the OECD to potentially go from ODA to ODE from "aid" to "efforts" still discounts the value of local efforts -- what are the real Official Development Efforts? International or locals? All this to say that -- ODA or ODE will have a real impact when it will be implemented in a more collective context of private. local, and international efforts. Until then...it's throwing good money at something that needed to be reformed 50 years ago!

A more interesting figure is how stable donations to international NGOs has been over the past 50 years (adjusted to size of economy) being about 0.03% of GNI, based on ACFID reporting figures. On Lukes 'giving' figure the 13% is 13% of what. The Industry Commission report of the mid-1990s had international NGOs as being about 40% of the total, but that was for charity (note domestic charities get very high amounts of government funding, much higher than international charities) . I think the 13% figure includes religious donations, sporting donations, and a lot of non-charity stuff.

You might be right Stephen - certainly the 'real time" household expenditure survey should be the more accurate - although it still seems very unlikely to me that aid NGOs are receiving 40% of the charitable dollar when you think of all those health, sporting, environment, indigenous and domestic antipoverty charities plus unis and private schools. Also I don't want to believe that our nation spends more on stationery than on giving to charities (an average of $4.42 compared with $4.26 per household per week in 2010) . Maybe it is all those letters saying "Don't send me any more requests for money I will give when I can."

Just further on your point, Garth, the 2005 survey you mention has household giving to international development NGOs at $758 million (13.3% of $5.7 billion) for 2004, excluding the Tsunami response. But reported donations by Australian international development NGOs prior to the Tsunami are about $400 million (see our first blog: https://devpolicy.org/the-other-scale-up-australian-public-donations-for-development-over-the-last-decade-20130829/), including donations from business. This does suggest a lot of over-reporting of our generosity in that 2005 survey.

Indeed sanctions do not necessarily work, or if they do, they mostly harm the best interest of the ordinary people. Though sanctions are imposed on elites, those very elites live in luxury in their respective states, like the case of Fiji, while the ordinary citizens are denied the benefits of international cooperation. It is therefore important and more strategic to lift sanctions on Fiji and constructively engage the government on the basis of good governance, accountability, transparency and respect for human rights. These will bring benefits to the people of Fiji as opposed to sanctions that work in the best interest of elites and compromise the interest of the masses.

Thanks Garth. I wasn't aware of that report. You are right, 40% does seem high and $2 billion low. I'm sure part of the explanation is the difference between asking people how much they give as part of a much broader survey of their spending patterns, and asking people how much they give as part of a survey of giving. In the latter, respondents might exaggerate how much they gave; in the former, they might give more accurate answers, or perhaps they forget how generous they are?

I think it is unlikely that 40% of private charitable donations are going to international aid, given the wide range of other types of charity and the understandable priority of giving close to home. The 2005 Giving Australia report, probably the most comprehensive analysis to date of Australian charitable giving, <a href="http://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2012/givingaustraliareport.pdf" rel="nofollow">estimated</a> [pdf] that donations to international aid made up around 13% of total private giving - that seems more likely to me. That report also said that $5.7 bn was contributed by individuals to charities (including religious groups) in that year. While one cause of this higher total is the inclusion of religious groups, I suspect that there are significant differences in methodology between the Household Expenditure Survey and the Giving Australia survey. While the ubiquity of large screen TVs, BMWs, pricey schools and overseas holidays amongst Australians suggest that we are probably not as generous as we think we are, I can't believe we are so stingy we only give $2 bn a year to all charities.

Serena, Daughter - great vision,great passion & heart for the PNG Youth. I am proud of you & team, including your support from organizations like the US Embassy. May GOD be your guiding light.

The Voice’s activities within PNG’s institutions is important. PNG can build on that to have a national youth empowerment program under the Dept of Youth and Welfare, branching out more to the rural areas and the ghettos as these are places where most of these issues identified stem from. I've been working with youths and school kids conducting mentoring sessions over the last four years in the villages of Highlands, PNG. With some of these issues, the causes are not so much the lack of education but the lack of empowerment opportunities i.e. skills training for the youths etc. Many international donors and government programs, from the heights of the ivory tower, continue to miss the point.