Comments

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.

What happens with PNG Citizenship that refugees may obtain. There is the question of whether refugees who obtain PNG citizenship will be allowed to enter Australia on the same conditions as any other PNGian? Will there be classes of approval based on refugee origin? Would this have to be countered by a further change in our Constitution? It goes to show that the whole affair was not properly thought through by either parties and that the rest of us were supposed to accept, not debate. Tony Flynn

Thanks Jo and Tess for both of these comments. I don't disagree with anything you say, though I don't know enough about the activities of the big Australian NGOs in the Pacific to evaluate your suggestion, Tess, that the organisations are tending toward homogeneity and a fondness for cookie cutters. However, our focus above is on the way aid resources are allocated to the big NGOs as a group, and among the organisations within that group. We think there are some interesting questions even in this limited domain. It's certainly true that the expansion of this group's resource envelope has the potential to change the way they operate in the field, though it will not necessarily do so. It's also true that it might reduce their appetite for criticising government policy though, again, it will not necessarily do so. They were all receiving quite a bit of support already, before the further expansion of funding in the post-2009 period. At the same time, the level of support they get from all AusAID sources is still minor in proportion to the level of funding they receive from community sources. My sense is that the ANCP Partners, and other NGOs for that matter, don't feel terribly constrained at present in what they can say and do in advocacy mode, provided they don't say or do it with support from the aid program. There was more of a problem in that regard in the earlier part of this decade.

An interesting post. Thank you. And to continue from Tess's last point in her comment, I see advocacy challenges as essential for NGOs to grapple with. In New Zealand, NGOs have been relatively silent regarding the ongoing erosion of the NZ government aid programme's attention to the most vulnerable people. Terence Wood and I argued in a conference paper last year that this was predominantly because NGOs didn't want to bite the hand that, albeit partially, fed it. And also the Minister sent strong signals about the potential consequences of earning his dislike: cutting funding to the Council for International Development and Global Focus Aotearoa, and attempting to sideline organisations that did speak out. I understand the difficulties, having managed NGOs myself. But NGOs are supposed to advocate for those whose voices are often silenced (aren't they?) and it is crucial they can do this with at least a degree of independence. This does not preclude NGOs from taking government money but it does require some careful thought and negotiation of the politics (ie: power relations) of it all.

Hi Lam Thanks for sharing the FSM situation - it's great to see how different Pacific island states are 'doing' democracy

These cases are very interesting from a comparative law perspective. In the FSM for example, there is no path at all between the Congress and the Supreme Court as far as a Speaker's ruling is concerned. The court would follow the Political Question Doctrine (which states that a court will not pass judgment on a political matter), and recuse itself from a challenge to the Speaker. A challenge may be taken up by the Congress as a whole, but in actuality no one has ever challenged the rulings in chamber of the Speaker, maybe by respect to the customs and traditions of Congress. Grumbled a lot, yes; made sarcastic noises, yes; but challenged, no. The legislation to the effect that an error must be prejudicial in order to be justiciable would in the FSM not be necessary because that concept is considered here as a doctrine of the Common Law supported by case law.

I am very wary of official development assistance agencies seeking to intervene in the national economic policies of any country whether least developed, low or middle income. This has to be done through a shared research and learning process exploring the policy and practice options open to the countries concerned. There can be strong external input into this process provided it is well informed and from bodies recognised and trusted by the policy and practice makers from the developing country and certainly never with a loud hailer. But there is a more important point. As countries move up the per capita ranks it would be reasonable, in my view, to expect them to pay for the advice rather than for it to be funded from aid programs. Sometimes free advice is valued at its price. Moreover, a scaled process of charges would also enable a continuation of a dialogues policy and practice research well beyond the stage of aid recipient status. All too often policy and practice exchanges end when aid programs stop.

Thanks for the insightful comments Tony. My piece focuses on the potential impacts on PNG and Papua New Guineans. But you are right, there needs to be informed and more objective analysis of what all this means for Asylum seekers as well. For example, I’d like to know how family reunions (‘split family arrangements’) – which has been a central part of the Australian refugee intake, although the <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/visas/humanitarian/offshore/immediate-family.htm" rel="nofollow">rules changed</a> in 2012 will play out in PNG. And yes, it would be great if this analysis was sans name-calling.

Thanks for the insights Grant. I think that you are right to shift the focus of debate from denigrating PNG to better understanding opportunities and challenges that refugees are likely to face in the country (both in detention and when released into the wider community) and all other Papua New Guineans face on a daily basis. We all know that the corner stone of the PNG Solution is its deterrent factor to potential asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia. If income and living conditions are important to asylum seekers then it is helpful to know that GDP per capita in Australia is more than 30 times that of PNG (although only 15 times on a PPP adjusted basis; however there are question marks over this PPP adjustment for the case of PNG). So clearly ending up in PNG is much worse relative to Australia if these average income levels are a reasonable reflection of the potential income of refuges in each country. In terms of living conditions and access to services, we know that they are much worse for the average Papua New Guinean relative to that in Australia but refugees settled in PNG are not necessarily going to live lives like the average Papua New Guinean - they could be better off (eg through special privileges paid for by the Australian government) or worse off (eg subject to discrimination, landlessness, and lack of community support). There is also the question of the standard of living in PNG that refugees might achieve relative to the conditions in their home country. Understanding these incentives should play an important role in informing the debate on PNG Solution. I'd like to see more objective analysis and less name-calling.

Yes you are right David, PNG is very ethnically divided and tribal affiliation is often the most prominent ‘nationality’ for many. However, as Robbins and others (like Robert Foster ) argue, people also identify as Papua New Guinean, this is reflected in national celebrations, advertising and even Christianity. This is particularly the case when comparisons of PNG to other nations arise. While someone might hold a very strong local/tribal identity, they can still say that PNG is good/bad/etc. compared to Australia, the US, or other nations. It’s a bit like when people from Melbourne go overseas and interact with people of other nationalities. They forget their rivalries with Sydney, and present themselves as ‘Australian’. I’m not saying that a sense of Papua New Guinean nationalism is as strong Australian nationalism. But PNG nationalism does exist. Thanks a lot for your comment.

Thanks for the Comment Matt. Yes, colonialism has likely played a big role in how the people in different countries of the region understand themselves, and possibly how their leaders engage with other countries. For example, cargo cults were a direct response to colonial rule in Melanesia but not so much in Polynesia. There are still many in PNG who romanticise about the colonial past. In 2008, I met a few members of Papua Besena - the Papuan separatist movement – who were still arguing that the southern part of the country should be a part of Australia. Colonial ties run deep in PNG, although they may be weakening in the wake of the PNG Solution – at least according to <a href="http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2013/07/24/Asylum-deal-a-nightmare-for-PNG-and-Australia.aspx" rel="nofollow">this blog</a>.