Comments

Dear Stephen We read with interest your claim in this Devpolicy Digest February 2013 that contractors thought the recently released AusAID Annual Review of Aid Effectiveness was “wonderful”. Your claim is a little misleading, though we thank you for linking to the exact statement we made so others can interpret for themselves. As you are aware from our statement, we simply commented that we were pleased with the range of outcomes presented in the Review, and that we were proud of the fact that IDC members’ efforts have assisted to create many of these positive outcomes. We did not suggest the Review is wonderful, however we value your critical commentary of the Review for further depth and discussion is certainly warranted, and some of your suggestions for future iterations are valid. In commenting about the existence of the Review, our intent was to highlight that where there are claims in the Review of lives saved, improved education outcomes and so on, in many cases it is members of the IDC who are key contributors to such results, through our management of activities on behalf of the Australian Government’s aid program. It is a shame, however, that the efforts of our members, large and small, and development professionals all, so often go unrecognised. The development landscape as you are well aware is complex, and it requires true partnership to achieve all that is possible – analysis, advocacy, policy, implementation are each important, and no single vehicle is the panacea across such a range of priorities. Importantly, as hopefully Devpolicy demonstrates, healthy debate is also positive. Mel Dunn Chair, International Development Contractors (IDC)

Dear Stephen and Wesley, I thought I would add a little more to what has already been said. I had an intimate involvement with the project so will only make general comment. In my mind, the project was conceived (as Wesley points out) as a response to Pacific Island governments wanting greater access to the Australian labour market for their citizens. The Australian government were never going to agree to this so to appease PIC, created APTC instead. The qualifications gained are vocational in nature and the chances of Pacific islanders qualifying to migrate are slim at best anyway. Nevertheless, a scheme that is a brain drain on PICs already facing skills shortages is nothing short of expedient and abhorrent. Building their capacity then shifting this to Australia or NZ is anti-development in my mind, notwithstanding the possible flows of money back to the islands. I feel the direction that the APTC has taken is a valid one. Perhaps a scheme similar to the AusAID Development Scholarship scheme requiring at least two years service at home before being eligible to migrate is appropriate. As for labour mobility schemes, I find it curious that the Australian government gives young European, and American working holiday makers (or backpackers for want of a better word) far greater access to the Australian labour market then Pacific Islanders. I would've thought it would be fitting to see it the other way around i.e. privileging islanders critical livelihoods above funding the travel of backpackers. In closing, I doubt the Australia Government was ever serious about giving islanders access to the Australian labour market. Australia's immigration policy is still inherently biased against immigrants from developing countries, especially the Pacific Islands who are considered high risk of breaching visa conditions. Keeping skilled Pacific Islanders at home will have a far greater development impact then having them migrate to Australia which is self-serving for Australia, and somewhat disingenuous because this would bring into question the idea of this being nothing then another form of "boomerang aid". PICs need sustainable industries at home and this can only be achieved if their skilled citizens stay at home. Any development program targeted at poaching skilled islanders is nothing short of selfish, serving Australia's needs only at the expense of island countries. The APTC program should privilege PICs and their citizens, and assist their development, not fill Australia's skills gap. It is a program worthy of long term support but must be depoliticised and undertaken in a spirit of generosity and not self-serving to Australia's needs. Of course I am assuming (perhaps naively) that aid of this nature has nothing but good intentions - depoliticised and focused on building the capacity of PICs so that they become less reliant on Australia and NZ and have more assured futures.

It's been an interesting discussion. I would like to make three points. First, I find it hard to accept Mike's point that PNG (or any other country for that matter) is doomed to fail as long as it has "majoritarian elections with unicameral legislature." India might have a bicameral legislature, but its Upper House has next to no power (it doesn't "curb" anything as far as I can tell), and it also has majoritarian elections. India isn't a total success story, but it isn't a failure either. Or, even more to the point, what about Botswana, a very successful African country that has both majoritarian elections and a unicameral legislature? I’m not a political scientist, so would welcome any clarification or corrections on these two comparisons. Second, MPs in PNG have become very powerful in relation to funds going to their own constituencies (look at the latest budget, which puts billions of Kina at their disposition) so I don't think they are going to support a constitutional change to move to multi-member constituencies. Third, constitutional reform in PNG is certainly worth discussing (after all, the Government has just announced a constitutional review), and perhaps it might be a good idea, but, to go back to the topic of the post, fundamental constitutional change from one type of democratic set-up to another is not something donors can or should influence.

Ray and Bob, Thanks for your comments. I've been away in PNG, hence the delayed response. I can see now Ray that our remarks might be read as implying that ACIAR relies only on Australian researchers. I fully accept, and have long understood, that it follows a collaborative model linking Australian and developing country researchers. I agree we should have been clearer on this, so thanks for bringing that out. My question remains though: why should always be a requirement of involvement from some Australian institute? Perhaps the best project might involve bringing together an American and an Indonesian institute. To mandate Australian involvement smacks of protectionism. Lots of countries use protectionist arguments, especially post-GFC. That doesn't mean we should. I'm glad that Bob agrees with me on this, but I also accept that it is an open question how much difference it would make. My question for Bob is this: If ACIAR has been spasmodic in promoting adoption, how does it get such high rates of return?

"If ... ... the justice system is not allowed to get bogged down in litigation..." The passive voice is emblematic. Who or what will not allow the justice system is not bogged down? God? The resilience and fibre of the people? "...the usual checks and balances of government and administration that are or should be in place to keep the MP’s honest." That's what's wrong with PNG? The public servants aren't keeping the politicians honest? In other countries it's the other way round: the electoral foundation supports parliament which shapes the executive which shapes the administration which shapes management (or "governance" to use the modish word). If the foundation isn't right, everything else will be shaky and any reform attempt will be papering over cracks. For example, when (if) RAMSI goes home the Solomons will immediately fall to bits because RAMSI isn't fixing the political structure. The Australian authorities give every appearance of not being aware that unless power is shared, those who think they are missing out will object. That is, the civil war will break out again and whole RAMSI venture will be for nothing. RAMSI officials are not interested. If anyone does suggest that the political structure is one which has never been known to work they are brushed aside. (Too hard. Anyway, why bother?) You say the people in PNG don't hold wantoks to account. Melanesians didn't invent tribalism. That is every culture. A topical example is the NSW Labor Party. They cannot hold their wantoks to account. They just can't do it. They have top-level inquiries but the reports are ignored. People know what's going on but they can't act against their own tribe. Or take the Lance Armstrong business: wantoks all over obeying the universal maxim: "Don't dob in your wantok." A rort only gets cleaned up when outsiders can exert power. Which is precisely why power has to be shared. This is not special to PNG, just more obvious. The remedy is also obvious: multi-member electorates. Then in each electoral district the different members of different tribes or parties can hold each other to account. You are concerned about boring the reader, Paul? Do you think it boring to tell them PNG politics is starting to come of age so the resilience and fibre of the PNG people will ensure objectives are practical and achievable and therefore PNG will move forward in a constructive way? That doesn't bore me. It frightens me.

Thanks Paul. I think you're correct that this dialogue may be starting to bore other readers. Mike, I think that one should be cautious about proposing that there are simple and neat solutions to the development challenges of PNG. Though you are probably right that some combination of an upper house, MMR and PR will push political behaviour in the right direction, and it seems an obvious reform for PNG, it is difficult to imagine that sub-state individual and group political behaviour will be altered in any revolutionary sense. And your strong claim that culture (conventions, customs, traditions, and codes of behaviour see Douglass North, 1990) is irrelevant to political behaviour seems too binary to fit with what most informed observers say about political behaviour in PNG and everywhere else. Thank you both for your valuable contribution to the conversation.

I visited my home country, Burma/Myanmar after 19 years in exile this year in December til mid Jannuary 2013. My village is large with over 1500 households. Villagers built nine large monasteries and two large pagodas with large Buddha statues. I also found that villagers have built two primary schools and one large High School in the centre of the village. I asked my old friends how much budget they received from others, such as government. They said, Zero. However, they are pleased that they have built this infrastructure. They have also installed an electricity grid and constructed roads from funding by local farmers and villagers. They received technical support from the government on road and eletricity installation. After 15 years of living and working in Canberra, Australia I am proud of my old friends who stayed in the land and work in a united effort to solve their own needs. If we look at over 60 years of armed conflicts in our country the picture is bleak. Our generation have learnt so much both here in Australia and other parts of the world on how to develop our new nation but we must not shy away to ask the advise from our local farmers who have solved their own needs in the past over 60 years or more. In this trip, I have observed that local farmers need technical support, road construction and assistance with land development. I also observed that local young people need skills to maintain traditional knowledge from older generations. I am aware that young people leave the village to Thailand, Malaysia or Korea. Development is about local sustainability. I hope, our leaders and Aid donors could find a balanced solution to this issue. Burma will be a hub of Asia if our leaders and our new system acts properly. Burma's over 60 millions population has time to work with other INGOs like AudAid and prominent scholars from ANU. Thanks to DevPolicy Centre for this leadership.

Mike, at the risk of boring other readers, I suggest we will probably have to agree to disagree. My conjecture is not specifically aimed at the Parliamentary system and I agree with you, the present concept when it was introduced to PNG was flawed. However these travails are merely typical of the holistic problem affecting ‘governance’ throughout PNG. While you may ague and refer to various foreign countries and their attempts at improving the Parliamentary system/s, the issue is much wider and more deeply entrenched in PNG. Sure the ‘rot may start at the top’ as you are endeavoring to point out. Yet it also flows down through the usual checks and balances of government and administration that are or should be in place to keep the MP’s honest. There have been military units who are allowed to mutiny and lose their weapons and get away with it a number of times. There have are police officers who are allowed to be hired out to protect private companies and reports of how they lease out their weapons. There are public servants who are well known for not turning up for work or accepting bribes before they will do anything. The collapse of the whole structure of government has been predicated on allowing ‘wantoks’ to break the rules because it is culturally unacceptable to hold them to account. If the current PM continues to bring in proper reform and the Ombudsman and Task Force Sweep continue to reveal malfeasance and the police force energetically pursues criminals and the justice system is not allowed to get bogged down in litigation, PNG will be able to move forward in a constructive way. In the meantime, anyone looking at PNG from the ‘outside’ should try to understand the problems from a PNG perspective. To not do so risks continuing to ‘hit a square peg into a round hole’ in the belief they are right because they know best. Las momo kani. Nogat tru. Arita yamboma, etc.

Thanks Peter for this post which is thought provoking and also resonates with a number of the issues that were raised during our meeting with the review team yesterday at the USP campus here in Port Vila. I certainly agree that planning can become an end in itself rather than a contribution to achieving the 'core business' of any organisation and this is something to be avoided. And if the Pacific Plan is indeed a 'living document' then it is susceptible to being killed off but that is not an option as far as this review is concerned. I do see a role for planning but won't enter into that debate here. It did occur to me last night that maybe what would be of more benefit would be more of a 'toolkit' approach (resources, including processes to identify the most cost-effective modalities to be drawn down by national governments or groupings thereof to meet particular needs)- and a recognition of the need for collaborative efforts to be demand driven. E.g. PNA is largely successful because it is driven by those that have a vested interest and those that don't can just ignore it and focus on something that is more important to them. (I guess I should copy and paste this comment to the website!)

"I only suggest that by understanding the local culture, people may be able to understand why good governance has been recognizably so hard to achieve." I have made no impression, have I? The reason good governance is hard to achieve is because the political structure makes it impossible. Trying to understand PNG governance through the perspective of culture can only lead to misunderstanding. Even the misunderstanding is hazy. Whereas I have produced instance after instance showing culture to be irrelevant, you can produce no evidence of how culture affects governance. I suspect the reason for this would be that any evidence would be in the form of anecdotes. Such anecdotes are embarrassing to put into print (they look like ridicule) and if some feature of the culture be submitted as explaining, say, corruption, then examples of similar corruption can always be found in our society—which undermines the thesis that it is culture which is causing the corruption. There are many instances where our politicians, also, were on the take. Venal is venal in any culture. The difference is, though, that corruption in our society is not so widespread as in PNG. We have institutional curbs on it. A majoritarian parliament requires a curb. Without it, the incentives are wrong: cronies are rewarded, top civil servants take bribes, ordinary lives are ruined. Though the upper houses of Britain and Canada are grossly undemocratic (as was New Zealand’s) and almost powerless, they suffice to curb the majoritarian lower houses from turning into elected dictatorships. It is quite a clumsy arrangement having a faulty lower house checked by an upper house. Effectiveness varies with place and fluctuates in time. When Howard unexpectedly won control of the Senate in 2004 things started to go awry for his government and a major reason he lost the next election was because he got carried away with his dominance of both houses ("work choices"). In WA the royal commission into "WA Inc" explicitly blamed the debacle on having an ineffectual upper house. It is the job of a political system to cope with the culture and the then WA upper house was not able to cope with the Brian Burke culture. Australia has changed nearly all its upper houses to PR: the Senate 1949, SA 1973, NSW 1978, WA 1987, Vic 2003; unicameral ACT switched to PR in 1988. PNG, meanwhile, has been left to stew. PR better aligns the politicians’ individual interests with the public interest so PR houses tend to be proper debating chambers. Also, the forestry company, instead of bribing the member for an electorate, has to bribe perhaps ten members—ten who belong to several different parties. Corruption becomes a lot harder. If culture has anything to do with it, Australian culture must be very bad indeed to require both kinds of curb: both upper house and PR. When unicameral NZ started having problems no one blamed NZ culture. They fixed their problems not by reinstating the upper house but by switching to PR. They adopted the West German form of it. Does this mean NZ has the same culture as Germany? Culture is—evidently—irrelevant to political structure. Old hands, acquainted with the culture through long hours by the rural campfire may find it hard to accept that wantok violence is caused by electoral design and parliamentary structure. But it is so. The wantok violence in Northern Ireland vanished with the introduction of PR. Just vanished. With the widespread introduction of PR in Africa, it has largely gone quiet. The same may be expected in PNG. And even if PNG has the most ghastly culture on earth, it doesn't help to lumber it with an unbridled majoritarian parliament. The idea that PNG can keep its dysfunctional structure and Australia can run the country is delusional. Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands can be swatted down whenever they get out of hand but the days of mineral-rich PNG kowtowing to Australia are numbered. Moreover the colonial power has too many distractions at home to properly pay attention. It was Australia running the place that caused Bougainville. In that case the result was a society ripped apart and 20,000 people dead. Neither their single majoritarian chamber nor a foreign power can run the country. The structure has to be right. The remedy is simple: PNG must adopt PR or an upper house. In 1975 the Australian government inflicted a curse upon the people of PNG. It took fifty years for Northern Ireland to boil over and now, after 38 years, PNG is simmering. It becomes more volatile as its politics become more shambolic and its resources become more valuable. The crisis will be very difficult to cope with. When Queensland goes bananas we can send Four Corners there to sort it out. When the Northern Territory goes off the rails the Commonwealth parliament can jerk it into line. When Northern Ireland blew up, England sacked the government and sent in an occupation force. These last-ditch curbs are not available for PNG. Electoral reform is a thankless undertaking. It has to overcome the opposition of those who are benefitting from the current system, who find every excuse to prove that now is not the right time, and who submit counter-proposals to obfuscate and stall. Advocating electoral reform does not advance careers and even when the need is accepted, it gets put off to tomorrow because today’s politics must be attended to. Moreover, because day-to-day political squabbling is colourful and dramatic, and election rules are dull and bureaucratic, the media and the public are not interested. Despite these obstacles, all those Australian houses did manage to change. It was a creaking, groaning, whingeing business but they got there. If NZ could do it, why not PNG? But PNG is far past the stage where it can do it alone. It is up to Australia. The leaders of PNG know their land has become a mafia state. But they are patriots: if they were encouraged to adopt an honourable strategy to set their country on a positive path, they might do it. A tragedy might be prevented and with a viable electoral structure, PNG would have a chance to become peaceful and prosperous.

Dear Jonathan and Robin, Thank you for this fantastic analysis. The excel spreadsheet you created and transparently made available to all (if only AusAID was that transparent!) is very useful. Interesting to see that the cuts are across the board and do not really clearly represent a new strategic focus. And, as you note, unclear how exactly the cuts will be made within each program (ie. in terms of say number of scholarships or vaccinations provided or schools rebuilt, etc). The bizarre increase to the Commonwealth (despite its very poor rating in the Multlateral Review) is odd. Something worth doing - and I would be happy to work with you on it - would be to create a figure of score on Multilat Review against funding volume and another against funding % increase. To see if the Review has had any impact on prioritisation of funding by Australian Government or if it was just a nice exercise. Joel

Mike, The central issue first raised was about Governance in PNG. I merely point out that it is my belief that PNG’s traditional culture has a large bearing on how PNG leaders and authorities have viewed the priorities of governance in the past. I suggest that through cultural misunderstandings, a lack of suitable alternatives and a large dose of naivety, Australia bequeathed PNG in 1975 with a system for which it was not yet ready. The fact that a pluralistic society and educated debate over at least a decade had produced the Australian political system didn’t guarantee the same would work in PNG. I didn’t say that PNG culture is ‘THE’ problem. I only suggest that by understanding the local culture, people may be able to understand why good governance has been recognizably so hard to achieve. I have hitherto suggested ways in which PNG could easily introduce an Upper House of Review using the existing Regional Members. Today’s PNG political leaders are far more ‘savvy’ in terms of what will work than their predecessors. I believe this acquired knowledge augers well for the future. The current PM should be congratulated and supported for the initiatives and policies he is starting to bring in. Cheers, Paul