Comments

Interesting post Stephen. I think your example of Australian aid assisting Indonesia to increase its tax revenue is a good one — there's plenty of scope for aid to Indonesia to try to address some of the growing inequality that is emerging in the country as its economy (and middle class) continues to expand. For example, assisting in the development of social welfare structures or healthcare safety nets for the poor, financed by the tax system and the country's growing tax base, could have a big impact on the most marginalised. I think these kinds of innovations are often overlooked in debates on aid, with the focus instead falling on more direct forms of assistance (schools, medical, disaster relief, etc). The technical assistance provided to governments by Australian aid can significantly improve the lives of people living in poverty when it is delivered effectively. Aid is also about transferring knowledge and expertise, not just cash.

John, I haven't had a chance to read through the full report in detail as I intend to but before this post moves off the radar I wanted to pose a question to you. In scanning through your summary of other's views of failed states it seems to me that the role of the community in contributing to strengthening failing states or rebuilding failed states is ignored. If we are to see the strength of the state as being dependent upon a functional social contract between the governed and those that govern then surely our contribution should equally be focused upon building the capacity of the governed to, for example, hold those in government to account, to develop lobbying capacity etc. This is more than a glib call for civil society which usually gets included in every report and some chump change allocated to NGOs, its a question as to fundamentally what are we doing in stabilization efforts? Do we build a state as an end in of itself regardless of its functionality or is the state apparatus only as good as the community understands how to utilize it for its purposes? As I noted in an earlier post on this blog there are too few community strengthening projects around, the CAP in Iraq and NSP in Afghanistan being the only two worth mentioning. That their approaches don't appear as headers in any of the strategies of the groups you summarized is I would suggest a reason for our continuing failures in preventing state failure or in state building efforts. Again, apologies if this is covered in detail in your report as I haven't had the chance to go through it all.

John, This was actually brought up in the most recent <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/committees/estimate/c5fb527c-51a7-4d94-b363-7b29d918bc9f/toc_pdf/Foreign%20Affairs,%20Defence%20and%20Trade%20Legislation%20Committee_2012_05_31_1071.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22committees/estimate/c5fb527c-51a7-4d94-b363-7b29d918bc9f/0000%22" rel="nofollow">Senate Estimates</a> (see page 51). According to DG Peter Baxter the decision to cancel the contract was actually conducted in agreement with the Dutch and was based primarily on consistent lack of performance (for example, over a two year period they expected 17 reports from TLO and only received 6). The primary justification for not looking for another contractor is because AusAID has significantly increased its presence and Oruzgan since 2010 and was confident they could get the information they needed to conduct programming decisions from their own people on the ground. All of this, in my eyes, seems quite reasonable. I would still be interested in hearing TLO's perspective on the whole matter. If I come across anything I will be sure to share. Jonathan

In the context of the Eyers report, it is interesting to read of AusAID cancelling its contract with an Afghan-based non-governmental organisation (The Liaison Office - TLO) after a critical report on progress in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province. AusAID asked TLO to prepare the report to evaluate Australia's efforts as lead nation in the province up to the end of 2011. I understand that TLO conducted about 180 interviews with local residents for the report, with a similar number of interviews from four quarterly provincial updates also incorporated. The resulting primary data was analysed by the TLO Research Team, comprised of both national and international staff, who conducted further desk research and triangulation interviews with 50 key Uruzgan actors and 29 development organizations. The report also includes local perspectives derived from a December 2011 survey conducted at a provincial stability meeting (jirga) with 523 Uruzgani respondents from all districts. The TLO Report appears to be comprehensive and is available on the TLO Website. I note that the report was financed by the Royal Netherlands’s Embassy in Afghanistan and the AusAID. I wonder if the report has been accepted by the Dutch? Mr. E. John Blunt is an Institutional and Public Procurement Expert with extensive experience in leading public procurement reforms in a variety of international development environments. He is currently on assignment with the Southern African Development Community in Botswana.

The independent reviews of Sachs' efforts on the Millennium Villages project are less than stellar and are hardly an endorsement for similar projects. My view is too many goals, not enough focus on basic issues that underlie development

This may sound counter-intuitive in an environment that quite rightly does focus on outcomes, but when it comes to wages for aid workers I feel some attention needs to be given to the contract negotiations. It has already been well argued that in order to attract good quality foreign workers high salaries need to be paid. Going abroad can be an exciting, interesting and attractive offer for a couple of years (how many people save up to go on gap years?), but as a long term career it has some serious downsides listed already by Andrew. What niggles me is when people (who do not work in development) make the first argument Terence pointed to: we do not give our money for you to go and live a cushy life. I can understand the desire for tax payers to get their money's worth, but I always react with: I'm sorry, do you want this job done? If so, are you prepared to do it yourself? And if not, are you prepared to pay someone a fair wage to do it? Aid workers are undertaking a service on behalf of their home nation in much the same way teachers, doctors, policemen, politicians do. We purchase goods from companies who pay their managers, accountants, financial analysts, salesmen and lawyers far more. I object to the expectation made by everyone else that I should gain job satisfaction because I work in development and therefore can be expected to take a financial hit, live in a mudhut and contract scurvy. Why should that be me, just because I am the one actually trying to do the work? From my (limited) experience development work can at times be far less satisfying than other jobs because you are conscious of how painfully slow progress is, how inefficient the system in which you are confined within is, and how unnecessary bureaucratic wranglings and limited political will to effect change is costing people their lives. There is also something a little perverse, although I cannot quite articulate an argument around it, about going to live in the exact conditions you are trying to help people escape. I currently work in a government department where my salary is supplemented about 3 fold by a charity back home. I would not go as far as to say I am 4 times as efficient / competent as my counterparts. But I would say I am more efficient and competent. I have been to one of the best universities in the West, they are the product of of local universities. This may sound incredibly arrogant, but if the local educational outcomes were as good as my home country (a) there would be no point in having me here and (b) the country would probably be doing a hell of a lot better. It is also worth pointing to the fact that much of the money circulates back into the economy. I live in a country that is trying to promote tourism because they recognise having rich foreigners come in and spend money in shops, restaurants, hotels etc. benefits the economy at large. Of course the primary benefactor of my salary is me, and conceivably by pushing up demand for goods I might be raising the price level, but there is a multiplier effect at work and my maid, the security guards at my compound, the wait staff at the restaurants I eat at, the guys that fill my car at the petrol station do also all benefit. So, although I remain sensitive to and aware of it, I am fairly comfortable with the gap between me and my local counterparts. I do not feel that riding a bike to work or switching to a poorer diet would help me perform my job better, but it may make me reconsider whether I want to go back to the City. I truly applaud the PCVs who can hack the local life, but it is not for me. I already have to live without (super) high speed internet, Thai restaurants, satellite sports channels and theatre. Please don't tell me I am being unreasonable by employing a maid two days a week.

Acemoglu & Robinson’s (2012) book, Why Nations Fail, is indeed compulsive reading. Its strength is in a unifying thesis about institutional failure, tested across a very wide set of disparate cases, historical and current. Among its examples it includes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (with its 'Black Act' aftermath drawing on the work of Marxian historian E.P. Thompson in his book Whigs and Hunters) and the convict–based British settlement of New South Wales, Australia. Diamond's lengthy critical review of the book, entitled ‘What Makes Countries Rich or Poor, should also be read. It will be evident that Diamond’s 'geographical' (reductionist?) approach as in his Guns, Germs and Steel is specifically and seriously targeted in A&R’s book. So Diamond has a lot at stake in this debate. One anomaly here (surprisingly, not picked by Diamond in his own review) is that despite A&R's commendably cross-disciplinary scope, their critical focus in regard to Diamond’s work is exclusively on Guns, Germs and Steel, but there is no mention of the equally important evidence and argument in Diamond’s later book Collapse (2005) and see also references cited for other works in a similar vein. Indeed, words such as 'environment' or ‘ecology’, let alone environmental 'collapse', do not feature in A&R's index. There is an important reference to 'climate change' but this does not encompass human-induced climate change, much less the notion of humanity as a 'geological' force acting on nature more generally, such as to justify the term ‘anthropocene’ to describe the geological era that some see as having emerged over the last few centuries. This is an amazing 'silence' on the part of A&R given the evidence (from Diamond and elsewhere) of past civilisations collapsing due to human-induced environmental effects. This is especially so given their apparent aspirations for the book, titled as it indeed is, Why Nations Fail ─ rather than why they may, even if temporarily, succeed. The further puzzle follows from the sub-title to Diamond’s Collapse, namely: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. While the case studies in Collapse convincingly substantiate the role of human-caused environmental degradation as a force destructive of those very societies and civilisations (and neglected by A&R) the weaker aspect of Diamond’s book is in his failure adequately to theorise his own ‘public choice’ question at the institutional level. Analysis of the ‘public choice’ question at the institutional level is the very strength that A&R claim for their own work. Clearly, there is ample scope for this debate to continue productively, recognising the need for close reconsideration on both (or all) sides.

Top work Margaret. Howes et al. said "OTML has been promising to use the internationally-recognized Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards for some time, but has failed to do so consistently. This year, OTML has once again committed to providing GRI reporting, starting in 2012" (p. 39 and Recommendation 17). Hooray. I was watching telly when I was at Wau recently, and on "ResourcePNG", broadcast on 28 June 2012, the MD of OTML, Nigel Parker, gave this fumbling undertaking during his, we assume, scripted address at a PNGSDP event. His company was committed to "... reporting using the IFC Global Reporting Format ... G3, a first for PNG". No such thing is mentioned in the OTML "Annual Review" - there is no Annual Report, because OTML has no public shareholders - but the last one to come out was for the 2009 reporting year (published online 5 Nov 2010, http://www.oktedi.com/news-and-reports/publications/annual-review). Yes, they are like the cow's tail, a bit behind. What was being broadcast on ResourcePNG was, I believe, the PNGSDP AGM together with the launch of its 2011 Annual Report (published online 22 Jun 2012, http://www.pngsdp.com/index.php/annual-reports). However, there is no announcement about this here. As a matter of interest "sustainability" is mentioned three times in the AR: "The road to economic sustainability in Western Province requires commercial savvy and community mindedness. RaitPower is a great example of how these can be achieved." p. 22 X "… has been a leader in the Australian Trade Unions and a number of other organisations: The Technical Teachers’ Union of Victoria, the ACTU Executive, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Plan International Australia, Global Sustainability Institute at RMIT University, and The Victorian Association of Forest Industries." p. 117 "PNGSDP has established five companies to undertake investments and provide services which improve the quality of life of communities, especially in rural areas … Project proposals are appraised with the same criteria for economic, environmental, social and institutional sustainability as any other project. Each project must be presented individually to the PNGSDP Board by PNGSDP management for endorsement." p. 122 On the first, no-one would disagree. On the second, sad as it is, and perhaps entirely irrelevant to X's performance, the Global Sustainability Institute at RMIT University closed its doors on 31 Dec 2010. On the third, you beaut … except that we don't know what the criteria are. Let me come back to Mr Parker's exciting news. The "Global Reporting Format"? No, friend, it's Global Reporting Initiative and if your underlings have this sort of trouble with the wording of the 79 indicators (and 11 more in the Mining and Metals Sector Supplement that you should also report on), I'll be back next year in this forum to tell you off. Also, eyes away from the other boys' homework. There's one in your class who skips the Indigenous People's questions, because he says they're aren't any in PNG (Indigenous Peoples, that is). The "IFC Global Reporting Format"? No, friend, the GRI clog-dancing folk are in Amsterdam while the IFC gnomes are in Washington. Different people. "G3"? It's okay, you can start with that one, though it's actually G3.1 now and G4 in a year or two And, again, don't forget the Mining and Metals Sector Supplement. "A first for PNG"? Well, now we are splitting hairs. The other big miners in PNG have been doing it for some years. Lihir Gold Ltd, who, when they existed, had a head office in Port Moresby, started in 2005 (web site redacted by new owners, but looking in fine health on the Internet Archive, http://web.archive.org/). All in good time, then. <em>John Burton</em>

Richard Your prescriptions in part 2 make sense to me. The discussion of the role and potential of a middle class is consistent with the identified dysfunctionalities of a 'rentier state' in which the middle class is able to be bought off by low taxes made possible as mineral revenues accrue to the governing elites. In this model no or low taxation is intended to take the struggle for 'representation' off the political agenda of the middle class. Your points about the desirability of creating a loyal diaspora along with educational opportunities outside also makes sense. This logic also seems to me applicable to indigenous people from remote areas in Australia. There needs to be dynamic interchange and exchange as between the remote communities and the wider world, if the former are to survive and if the indigenous people from these regions are to prosper and avoid degradation. Of course there can be a downside to 'dynamic interchange and exchange' in the form of alcoholism etc. and these are major issues to be addressed by these communities and the wider society cooperatively and consultatively. Alcohol and poverty wreak their destructive effects by sabotaging the will and the ability to plan and to commit, not least to education and advancement. Yes, there is a need to foster change that is 'disruptive' to the ruling elites, including those supported by quasi-colonial powers such as the US in the middle east and elsewhere. Such change is also viewed as disruptive to this quasi-colonial power, the U.S. still seeing itself unashamedly as a 'status quo' power. In fact, in terms of quasi-colonial practices it has been a 'roll-back' power in Iraq and elsewhere

In 2010, PNGSDP made a significant investment in rebuilding its Procurement and Contract Management processes to provide a straightforward, but detailed, practical procedures to be followed when conducting procurement using PNGSDPL funds. They were designed to be simple to use and understand, by breaking the overall procurement process down into a series of individual procedural steps and breaking each stage down into step-by-step instructions. The procurement and contract management procedures were intended to: •provide working procedures which implement the requirements of the PNGSDPL Procurement Procedures; •promote efficiency, economy and the attainment of value for money in the use of PNGSDPL funds; •provide uniform procedures for application by all parts of PNGSDPL; and •provide standard procedures, against which procurement activities can be monitored and audited. The procurement and contract management procedures were to apply to all procurement carried out by PNGSDPL, using its funds. Given that much public procurement in PNG is problematic, it would have been most appropriate for the Review to comment on the PNGSDP procurement and contract management processes and procedures, specifically their use in properly underpinning PNGSDP’s significant development activities through PNG. Perhaps the PNGSDP approach to procurement and contract management provides a guide to other PNG public and private institutions as to an ‘appropriate’ approach and ‘fit-for-purpose’ procurement and contract management processes and procedures. <em>E. John Blunt is an Institutional and Public Procurement Expert. He has previously worked for PNGSDP. He is currently on assignment with the Southern African Development Community Secretariat in Botswana.</em>

Every year new strategies for aid programmes are needed based on the current situation. The whole world economy is pretty bad right now so it is a good thing that the aid programmes still exist.

Tess, I agree that the compromises made across the three arms of government in the lead up to elections have done series damage to constitutional democracy in PNG. So it is all the more important that the ongoing national elections deliver the leaders willing and able to remedy the damage done by some of their predecessors.