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It seems everyone has lost their integrity to self preservations and greed. Sam you are truly a man of integrity with enormous courage and we salute you with great honour for showing us the true meaning of upholding an integrity. You have the peoples heart and our heavenly father is always with you for that for! God Bless.

Cool, thanks Jonathan, Robin. And whatever the actual figures, given that unofficial flows would boost the total remittance total to around three quarters of a trillion dollars, the main point they are making still stands, that: People are paying a lot more than countries. Impressive level of detail too - I was even able to get a result for Samoa!

If they were using data on Official Development Finance (ODF), as their reference indicates, that would have delivered a too-low total ($US151 billion in 2011) and also would have included some non-concessional flows, since ODF is broader than ODA. However, even if they're being a bit sloppy with the term ODA, they're in the right ball park. If you look at the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/statisticsonresourceflowstodevelopingcountries.htm" rel="nofollow">reporting tables</a> for 2011, while net ODA was only $US134 billion, you can see that gross ODA disbursements were $US149 billion (table 13), grants by NGOs were $US31 billion (table 2), and ODA from non-DAC donors was at least $US13 billion (tables 33 and 33a) and probably much more. So gross concessional flows to developing countries from all sources were probably at about the level they estimated -- i.e. a bit above $200 billion.

A good question Jason. The authors of the visualisation must have been incorporating more than just ODA in their calculations of development flows (notice they call it 'development aid' not ODA). Still, when looking at <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REF_TOTAL_ODF#" rel="nofollow">their source</a> of development aid the numbers still don't quite add up. I would have to do some more digging into it but overall I still think the visualisation does a great job in showing how remarkable remittance and migration patterns are. Regards.

Correction: Garth Luke has pointed out to me an error in these calculations. In fact, the estimate for the aid increase in 2016-17 should be $547 million (not $380 million), giving an average increase for the three years in the forward estimates of $577 million (not $520 million), and leaving a required increase of $1.9 billion in the final year (not $2.1 billion). Thanks Garth.

I am quite sure the answer is yes. However, the answer doesn’t matter greatly because it is estimated that only $13 million of the $236 million will be spent in 2013-14. At this point we don't know what, if any, further funding might be allocated from the aid budget to meet in-Australia asylum-seeker costs in 2014-15 and beyond. Stephen Howes and I included a question about this in an <a href="https://devpolicy.org/a-whole-new-set-of-questions-asylum-seekers-in-png-communities-20130805/" rel="nofollow">earlier post</a> about the $236 million allocation in the August Budget Statement. We noted that the government’s more thoroughgoing offshore processing policy will, in theory, eliminate all costs associated with asylum seekers living in the Australian community and awaiting determination of their claims, other than those associated with people who arrived before the regional ‘solution’ was announced. Thus one would assume that at least some of the $375 million appropriated to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) in the May budget is no longer required to meet domestic costs and could have been reallocated for spending in PNG to cover the estimated $13 million expenditure requirement in 2013-14. However, there is no indication in the August Budget Statement that the $236 million allocation for community-based arrangements in PNG includes any funding from the $375 million previously allocated. In fact the statement says that the $236 million ‘has been offset from a reduction in AusAID’s budget’, whereas the $375 million, while reportable as ODA, forms part of DIAC’s budget. There’s a separate and much larger question about the fate of the two amounts of $375 million transferred from AusAID’s budget to DIAC’s in December 2012 and May 2013. As I have commented in the past, no policy basis for determining these amounts was ever made public and the amounts seemed larger than might have been expected if the relevant expenditures were to meet the requirements of ODA eligibility. DIAC’s Secretary admitted in early May, during Senate Estimates hearings, that DIAC was likely to underspend against the 2012-13 allocation. We don’t know whether and to what extend they did underspend, or what the consequences might have been for the 2012-13 final ODA outcome. If DIAC is going to fall short against the 2013-14 target, and can estimate how far short, the appropriate course of action would obviously be to return the excess funds to AusAID in sufficient time to allow them to be programmed in 2013-14.

Great visualisation. Good detail. But are those ODA figures accurate? $250 billion sounds way too high, see <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/sep/20/drop-aid-declining-will-global-partnership" rel="nofollow">this story</a> from The Guardian, which mentions a figure of $133 billion, nearly half of the figures above.

Robin, Is it your understanding that the $236m over 4 years for ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals living in community based arrangements’ in PNG is additional to the amounts already to be diverted for the support of asylum seekers in Australia? In the 2013-14 budget the Government said: 'To ensure predictable planning and management of the ODA budget, the Government will cap expenditure from the existing ODA funding envelope in any one year at $375 million.'

I don't know if I'd characterise this as simply a case of policy on the run. There's probably an element of that. The shift from processing in neighbouring countries to resettlement and community detention in those countries appears to lurch a little beyond the recommendations of the Houston report. The latter called for the implementation of 'processing options outside Australia for the determination of protection claims of those who arrive by irregular means'. However, in its discussion of processing arrangements with PNG and Nauru it did not propose local resettlement (or community detention). In the post above, though, my concern is more that the features and implications of the policy have not been canvassed openly enough. In response to your specific question, I didn't say above that it's not in Australia's policy interest to speed up the time taken to process asylum claims. I said, 'We know that the Australian government is in no hurry, as a matter of policy, to see asylum seekers’ claims processed'. That's a statement of fact about current policy, as embodied in the 'no-advantage' principle first articulated in the Houston report. As has often been pointed out, nobody knows exactly what average processing times would be consistent with this principle because there is in fact no clear point of comparison -- but the average will doubtless be measured in years. Aside from its assumed deterrent effect, slow processing obviously also confers the pragmatic advantage of deferring difficult decisions on where and how to resettle those found to be refugees.

Thank you for your on-going commentary on the recent Rudd government asylum seeker policies. One of the main points you appear to be making is that this is policy on the run and it is not clear that the government (Australian as well as the Pacific island governments) have a plan. My question is about one small point you make in this post. Why do you write that it is not in Australia's policy interest to speed up the time taken to process asylum claims?

Hey Ada, Thanks for your comments- and great work on an awesome and relevant pseudonym! I absolutely agree - technology is only a tool, albiet one that can significantly magnify the impact of the work aid agencies and workers do! It's fairly unarguable that AusAID has some catching-up to do in this area though. Whilst a strategy should only ever be the first step and has to set the right framework - the <a href="http://bit.ly/13j5MvZ" rel="nofollow">USAID experience</a> is a good example! - the bigger point is that more attention needs to be payed to this area to ensure we are using the most efficient and productive tools possible to achieve our aid and development objectives. Happy to continue the debate on Twitter- I'm on gerardtmccarthy. Cheers, Gerard McCarthy Director (Asia-Pacific) TechChange www.techchange.org

Technology is a tool, not an end unto itself. Aid agencies no more need a technology for development strategy than they do a manufacturing for development strategy, or a marketing for development strategy. There are enough useless strategies in aid agencies - the utility of yet another one is unclear.