Comments

Many thanks Colin for the report. Many local landowners are waiting and wanting to see the outcome of it. Many think the national government should do away with SABLs and or restructure it in a way that local people who own the land should benefit more on that without being on the loosing end. Just this month on the 11th I organize an landowners' Forum in Wewak town the capital of East Sepik. More than 50 landowners (both genders) took part. The outcome of the forum was good and people are calling on the authorities to really see how people feel about the SABLs granted nationwide and do something in their favour. Thanks Jimmy Wewak

Those with experience in Pacific politics know that nothing - NOTHING - is ever as it seems on the surface. There are very good reasons why very few in the region are taking this report seriously. Perhaps you need to do some investigation into Peter Winder's relationship to Murray McCully, particularly his role in the reorganisation of MFAT/NZAID, and do a bit of research into how the report was written. Then you may find the reason why eminent, highly knowledgeable people are responding in a way you feel is "unfortunate."

I have enjoyed reading this set of interesting and constructive reviews. Thank you, Neil. I thought your point about our failure to ask why things are the way that they are, and to put sufficient effort into the analysis of the politics of countries receiving assistance, compared to the technical aspects of the development problem alone, especially important. This point about analysis echoes the views of Gerard Guthrie in his book 'The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries' (Springer, 2011) that evident failures in education in development likely reflect insufficient analysis of local cultures and their impact on learning and teaching. The case for better analysis in public policy formation has also been very well-made by Gary Bank’s, Chairman, Productivity Commission, in his 2009 address to the Australia New Zealand School of Government in February 2009 available at: http://www.pc.gov.au/speeches/cs20090204

Margaret, thanks very much for this research. I think it's interesting to see that EITI has progressed as well as it has, and that there are still very great accountability gaps even when initiatives like EITI are operating. I think this is where the developmental part of Mining for Development really has to be in lights, not least through monitoring and evaluation systems. I hope we will see a developmental impact as a result of this very significant investment from AusAID in mining - would that not be inspiring? I'd be keen to know whether the kinds of accountability gaps you describe also exists for mining companies in remoter parts of Australia, for example in the Kimberly. I know that colleagues at UQ's Sustainable Minerals Institute have done some really good work on the interaction of mines and indigenous communities in WA - I wonder if this research might be mutually supporting?

Your title suggest that he has previously given us "pie in the sky" ideas. In fact, if you do your homework, you will learn that the Millennium Development Goals have actually achieved significant drops in poverty (about half in most developing countries) from 1990 to 2010. This is NOT "Pie in the Sky." People act like things never work, even when they actually do for a change.

Hi Tobias, Thank you for your comment. If I understand you correctly you are describing a system where: 1. Solomons politicians are deciding the projects that go into the national development plan. And, in many instances, they are choosing these projects based on their own individual political interests. 2. Donors are choosing projects to fund solely based on what is in the national development plan and how it has been prioritised. 3. Donors are then implementing projects generally avoiding SIG systems. If this is how the majority of donor funding is currently being delivered to Solomons then I agree the system is deeply flawed (and somewhat different from how I understood aid delivery to take place there). And I agree that it would be conducive to clientelist politics. However, I don't see a shift to budget support doing anything to improve the situation. Either budget support is heavily constrained, in which case the odds of clientelist spending and corrupt practices are reduced but so to is budget supports potential to foster national politics (if such potential actually exists). Or budget support is unconstrained, in which case the money will, it is true, enter the arena of political contestation but would not, in my opinion, change the collective action dilemmas underpinning clientelism in Solomons at present. And, because of this, achieve little other than adding more fuel to the flames. Personally, I think the optimal approach to aid delivery in Solomons is for: 1. Donors ascertain the key binding constraints on welfare in the country. Constraints could be determined through different means depending on geographical scope: locally through participatory community processes (as the RDP currently does); or nationally, through study and consultation. In doing this I would place very little weight on the opinions of local political actors - their interests are often their own, and the incentive structures that they work under at odds with development for the country as a whole. 2. Donors act to relieve these constraints using the optimal means for this task chosen based on a weighting that places considerably higher emphasis on lifting the constraints themselves than on other desired outcomes such as strengthening partner systems for their own sake. The optimal means may, of course, still be using partner systems (obviously, the Ministry of Education is the only possible means of running schools in Solomons). And strengthening partner systems may be an integral part of actually attaining the welfare improvements that have been prioritised. However, where government systems are used, I would suggest we need to be very careful about unintended consequences, and need to strive to avoid the trap of isomorphic mimicry. And that we need to be very realistic about what these systems can achieve and about our ability to influence how they may run. 3. Engage in an ongoing manner to assist in holding key institutions (electoral commission, parliament, central bank, courts, police) together in spite of the centrifugal pull of the country's clientelist politics. 4. Undertake research to learn all that we still don't know about governance and politics (a lot) in Solomon Islands. And from this, maybe consider interventions that target these areas directly, but also be open to the idea that there's little we can do directly. What would this achieve: It would not directly solve the problems of governance and politics in Solomon Islands but: 1. It would improve the quality of people's lives (And would be a more efficient means of doing this than any approach to aid that mixes this objective with a range of other overly ambitious desired outcomes associated with institution building for its own sake). 2. Hopefully, would -- through improving education outcomes, and affording the possibility of economic change and the social change that comes with it -- aid in the possible growth of cross-cutting social and political movements that ultimately change the nature of politics in Solomon Islands. To me this seems like a better approach than the status quo or any shift to higher order aid modalities made solely on the hope that they will give birth to national politics. I could be wrong though, and definitely appreciate hearing your insights as someone with on the ground aid experience in Solomons. Thanks again for the comment. Terence

Stop press! After eighteen more months the 'nothing' link above - http://www.oktedi.com/reports - still points to nothing, as do the 'Community' and 'Sustainability' links on the web site's reports menu. The 2009 Annual Environmental Report (19 Sep 2009) mentioned by Matt Morris is still the most recent - 2010 anyone? 'Global reporting' and 'GRI' return no hits from the web site, despite Nigels Parker's commitment to start doing GRI reporting aired on EM TV's ResourcePNG, broadcast 28 June 2012 (further comments under https://devpolicy.org/papua-new-guinea-sustainable-development-program-how-is-it-performing/).

Thanks SF!

Thank you for this moderate and well-reasoned article. You moved me outside my left-leaning anti-ex-pat position. Points noted. Good luck with it all.

Global warming is a big threat to human beings. Sometimes to distribute the funds to the people in need is more complex than to acquire the finance.

Further clarification...the SWF legislation was already in its advanced stages with plenty of consulation with Australian treasury before Mekere became Minister; the Lae Port redevelopment also was in its advanced stages; the new fibre optic project (negotiated by the previous IPBC and SOE Ministerial regime) - already in its advanced stages; the draft legislation regarding a infrastructure fund - that too was already in advanced form before Mekere became Minister! We are yet to see any new development programmes initiated by the current IPBC regime which they can claim as their own initiative!

Thanks Terrence for the excellent posts on this topic. As you say, I think we agree far more than we disagree. And where we do disagree, you go far further than merely attributing behaviors in Solomon Islands to “culture”, as if it were some ubiquitous, exogenous, and primordial force. You treat behavior as if it is something that is amenable to analysis, with an important role to be played by rational choice models. So I am happy. I don’t think I have all of the answers. But I know that we need serious analysis (like yours) to find them, rather than outsiders blaming problems of economic development and political governance purely on the ill-defined “culture” of locals. I also agree, though, about where we disagree most – the importance of development partners making greater use of Government systems. I don’t believe that we can expect Government accountability to emerge unless Government can reasonably be held responsible for more of what impacts on Solomon Islanders’ lives. Why would you care about national-level politics when the school has a Taiwan sign on it, and the clinic has an AusAID sign on it, and there are no local roads or public infrastructure, and there are no local businesses operating within formal regulatory or legislative frameworks, and the police visit every three weeks but leave just about everything to village-level dispute resolution systems? Legislation, regulation, policy and Government service delivery do not appear as large parts of your life. Would more budget support change this? I think donors making better use of Government systems and delivering aid through Government agencies and in alignment with Government policy programs would certainly help. It would allow an expansion in the reach of Government services. It would switch some accountability for service delivery and private sector development towards Ministers and away from foreign donors. It would, if provided through appropriate SWAPs or sector budget support, reduce the amount of funding available for the development budget pork-barrel. It would also move the emphasis of donor dialogue, which I believe can be an important motivator for change, away from fragmented projects and implementation issues, towards broader issues of policy. 40% of public expenditure in Solomon Islands is from donors. Most of this money goes straight into project implementation, without hitting the sides of Government systems. Often, Government doesn’t even know what donors are doing or how much has been spent because of the complete inadequacy of reporting systems. Two hundred projects, some of which have marginal linkages to any Government development strategies but are – of course – covered by a National Development Plan that includes everything you can think of. Funds channeled through these projects are anything but “out of the arena of political contestation”. As in most countries, the development budget is a far more active arena of political contestation than the recurrent budget, which is largely absorbed by payroll expenses, inflation adjustments, and rolling over of nationally implemented programs. The recurrent budget provides for far fewer of the short-term, geographically targeted infrastructure, “private sector development”, and community programs that populate the development budget – perfect bite-sized morsels for engaging in clientelist politics. Use of Government systems is widely seen as desirable for many reasons and it is something that donors have already signed up to at Paris, Accra, and Cairns. To me, one of the most important of these is the impact on political governance. Increasing the resources to support recurrent programs will make what central Government does more noticeable. Reducing money through projects will reduce some of the scope for clientelism. A fair amount has been written about the importance of using Government systems for these reasons, especially in fragile contexts (examples here: http://go.worldbank.org/QLKJWJB8X0 and http://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/42/). Some resources perhaps wouldn’t be used very well. But that’s part of the process and bad spending happens everywhere. Even (don’t tell anyone) under donor projects. But at least if Government is plainly in control of the spending (and under the right constitutional/electoral arrangements) there is some chance the Government or minister responsible will be held accountable for that at the next election. Other than some quibbles, this is the only area where I think we are actually at odds. Look forward to your next post. Tobias