Comments

HI Anthony, personal reasons, study and employment... if things are going well at their HO, why would they be looking for jobs back home before the end? Assignment outcomes completed.. probably because there's little more they could do without adequate resourcing and support. At the pre departure briefing, the Ausaid rep freely admitted it was about bums on seats, and if there was an aid outcome then that's a bonus. The recruitment is handled by people with no experience of recruitment who often screw up - which confirms that there is no need to get it right.

Thank you Aidan, Peter, kiki, and David for taking the time to provide your well-considered responses to my blog. I think you all make valid points that add to the debate I’m trying to stimulate. Peter, I think the Huntington article in question from 1968 provides some relevant references so I’ll refer back to that. In this article it is argued that corruption begins to reduce when there is a “congruence between prevalent norms and prevalent behaviour at the price of some inconsistency in both. Some behaviour comes to be accepted as a normal part of the process of politics, as ‘honest’ rather than ‘dishonest graft’, while other similar behaviour comes to be generally condemned and generally avoided.” This proposition appears to link to Dr Walton’s idea that in PNG “formalising petty corruption may be one way of preventing weak states from becoming failed states”. Both propositions advocate against the adoption of puritanism as an effective anticorruption approach. Huntington is a brutal pragmatist and sees corruption in this light: corruption provides political access to the state that cannot be procured through formal channels – for both the poor and the rich. The poor get money via their political power, and the rich get political power via their money. Aidan, I think you’re correct when you say that the incentives around public officials need to align before corruption can be brought under control. This must include remuneration and pensions that are a realistic alternative for officials to selling public privilege for private gain, but must also be accompanied by a strong, ongoing, long-term and centralised political will to punish those that breach the new norms. Clearly in PNG, in the current political context, this is a near-impossible task, though the current administration appears to be using this rhetoric more strongly than any that have preceded it. Kiki, I agree that for PNG, the open flow of credible information between and amongst citizens and their state is a key component to enabling the development of new norms and standards of public and private behaviour that promote inclusivity. Independent media is a compulsory aspect of this, as is a state that operates according to principles of openness and transparency. Of course, this political equation only works properly in an environment of mass literacy. David, I think the broader issue you are referring to is the distinction between on one hand, evidence-based policy, and on the other hand, policy that is designed to appeal to more immediate political demands and based loosely, if at all, on the available evidence. For anticorruption policy in developing countries like PNG, the path of least resistance is the announcement of a new anticorruption agency or unit, or the provision of foreign advisers to build capacity of existing state anticorruption agencies. The available evidence indicates that such initiatives can work in an environment where political will is overwhelming and broad-based, and the formal law and justice system already functions above par. But in PNG (and elsewhere), where this isn’t the case, the record of success is weak. See for example Heilbrunn's article <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/wbi37234Heilbrunn.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a> [pdf]. Such a scenario (policy designed for short-term political expediency versus long-term public utility) is always with policymakers. My objective in writing this blog is to play a role in stimulating dialogue that brings the two different objectives closer together.

Thanks for this post Stephen and I agree that there are a number of credibility issues at stake here as well as significant political risk. In terms of credibility, one issue that comes to mind is that this is posited as a 'regional solution' implying that it addresses a 'regional problem'. This is blatantly not the case, people travelling in boats seeking asylum do not cause a problem for PNG. People moving across the land border between PNG and West Papua and seeking asylum is an issue for PNG and one which they have historically had significant difficulties in addressing - yet we have no news on what the 'regional solution' for this may be. Those who advise Australian politicians are fully aware of the political risks you have outlined, based on their knowledge of PNG, the way power does and does not operate and the myriad implications that a proposal of this type is likely to have politically, economically & socially...an approach such as this has potential to increase state fragility in PNG, not to mention the risks of human tragedy, the knock-on effects throughout the region including distortions to the aid budget...

Has anyone noted the irony of increased assistance to PNG at a time when PNG is providing assistance to other Pacific island countries, funding additional regional architecture (MSG, PIDF, PACP Secretariat, etc, etc), new ambassadors, and generally making statements that it has plenty of resources and doesn't need Australia and New Zealand? It is hard not to be incredibly cynical about this - and it is hard to be optimistic that the funds will result in anything good, given the track record to date. If PNG would rather have additional regional architecture than additional mothers and children surviving childbirth, how can Australia's money hope to make a positive impact?

I agree with Marie that church health services are doing their best under difficult conditions to improve the maternal health of this country. The VHV program in PNG I do not see the benefits. PNG is a country that we value our relationships and it is the families that help and people in times of need generally call for assistance and help from their families not VHVs. What we need is to increase CHW training programs, General Nursing, Midwifery programs and Medical School and improve the health system to develop strategies to retain professionals in remote and rural places where the population in need are.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned the raging debate going on between the Ravallion and Duflo camps about the role of inequality, growth and poverty alleviation - or the Asian Development Bank's changing approach to working in Asia, and its strengths/weakensses. This is a very complicated discussion - it needs deeper examination that has been given here.

I like your conclusion that rather than focussing on the formal positions like Ombudsmen and Anti-Corruption commissions, concentrate on “norm-building” institutions such as internet infrastructure, reduction in red tape, economic openness, civil society activity, freedom of information acts and media freedom. (+ mass literacy). As you (may) know, though, announcing the establishment of an anti-corruption commission is a targeted initiative that plays to a particular audience as a tangible way of demonstrating that action is happening so I suspect we will continue to see demand for these particular, rather than general interventions.

Hi Rosita, thanks for you very interesting piece. Although not in the development field myself (anthropologist by trade), the issue of unequal development is often the topic of conversation in the area of the world I work in - South Korea and Japan. In South Korea, in particular, it is possible to see extremes of both wealth and poverty within a few subway stops of each other. This is perhaps exemplified best with the case of the now globally known Gangnam area, and the nearby, not so well known Sillimdong, an area that has for a long time now somehow missed much of the development enjoyed by other parts of Seoul. South Korea and Japan are also interesting cases because of the influence of family-owned conglomerates that wield such huge financial and political power in these countries. The likes of Samsung and Toshiba are frequently pointed to as the reason for both the success and hardships of these East Asian economies. In short, great article, I look forward to reading more from you. Markus

Hi Michael, That's a good point. And I remember Kuznet's curves from development economics classes. But, as an empirical question, is there much evidence to suggest that today's crop of developing countries can expect to ride such curves? I imagine it would have been easy to argue Kuznets was right sometime around 1970, when looking at OECD data, but since then inequality has resumed its rise, suggesting that trajectories of inequality are more complex than might be suggested in initial theorising. cheers Terence

Thanks Michael. I think as you suggest that the empirical evidence does not support the "a rising tide lifts all boats" theory. Economies have clearly grown rapidly over the past forty years, but so too has inequality. Your point on the US is a good one. One has only to spend some time in the States to witness the extremity of the poverty many Americans experience. It is not a model for emulation if we believe that the objective of development is about more than AGGREGATE growth.

Ashlee, you are quite right. Timor Leste should have been listed as a lower-middle income country. I think it is not only donors that will need to shift the way they engage in the region, but the broader set of development organisations, including NGOs, universities, and development contractors. Joel Negin's article makes important points, and I particularly agree with his recommendation that donors should be looking to focus on facilitating an open sharing of ideas across the region. But I would also be cautious about framing the future of Australian development assistance as being primarily a technical process of transferring Australian knowledge. Evaluations of development assistance over the past twenty years provide fairly compelling evidence that a focus on technical approaches without actively formulating programs around a deep understanding of the political economy of the region or community, leads to weak outcomes as efforts at reform often encounter serious roadblocks. I would also be wary of recommending that Australia work on justifying the value of Australian knowledge over that provided by other Western donors, or indeed that available within Asia. Middle income Asia has a huge amount of resources at its disposal in terms of highly educated populations and skilled workforces. My experience (in Asia, rather than the Pacific) has been that facilitating knowledge sharing between Asian countries is often more welcome and better received than offers of Western technical assistance. But as my article stated, I am advocating that as an industry we start looking for other ways to support development in middle income Asia. Serving a convening role between important political and technical actors, and facilitating collaborative relationships between various power holders and interest groups is a good place to start.

Hi Rosita, Interesting post. I was wondering though, what measure for lower-middle and upper-middle income are you using? I was just surprised to see Timor-Leste listed as upper-middle income alongside countries such as Thailand and Malaysia -- the World Bank classifies it as lower-middle income and the government there has a goal under its national development plan to move to upper-middle income status. I know the high resources revenue has the potential to skew things in Timor and I think the World Bank accounts for that in its measurements. Aside from that comment, I agree with you that this change in Asia will also necessitate a shift in how donors, including Australia, engage and view their role in the region. I think Joel Negin's recent <a href="https://devpolicy.org/the-future-of-aid-not-all-about-the-money-20130411/" rel="nofollow">post</a> on the future of aid not being all about the money is really relevant in the case of growing Asia -- if donors want to stay in the game they need to make sure they have the competitive knowledge and technical expertise.