This is our last blog for the year. Thank you to everyone who has written for, read, commented on, promoted and supported the Devpolicy Blog in 2022. We hope you are able to enjoy some rest over the holiday period until we resume on Monday 9 January 2023.
Here are suggestions for your summer reading and a recap of the year in lists of some of our favourite and most popular blogs.
Summer reads
Despite limitations to his approach, there’s a lot to like in Stefan Dercon’s answer to the overarching question of why some countries grow rich and others don’t, says Stephen Howes. And if Dercon’s book promotes discussion of the tough question of whether an aid recipient country’s governing elite is pro- or anti-development, it will have made an invaluable contribution.
Thousands of people are alive and living better lives as a result of his “dogged and indefatigable behind-the-scenes work”. Discover the most influential humanitarian you’ve never heard of in Gordon Peak’s review of Robert D. Kaplan’s biography of Bob Gersony.
“Identifying the wheels of change that have existed all along, brings us closer to understanding the deep roots of inequality,” says Matthew Woolf in his review of Oded Galor’s The Journey of Humanity.
Humour can force us to confront ourselves, the organisations we work for and the systems we’re part of. “Good satire,” writes Gordon Peake in his review of some examples, “can make for powerful writing.”
And if you have time, there’s plenty more good reading among the Devpolicy reviews.
Aid and development
Australian aid
The urgent need for an Australian aid transparency reset
Australian public opinion about aid: is it changing, and does it matter?
Australia’s development finance review: a DFI at last?
What happened to Australia’s leadership on disability inclusion? A tale of two summits
Plus discussion of the 2022 Australian aid budget and all the Devpolicy monthly aid news for 2022.
Global development
The “polycrisis” and global development finance: options and dilemmas
Beyond the rhetoric – why INGOs need to change
China’s Global Development Initiative: soft power play or serious commitment?
Wrecking ball: the Ukraine crisis and global aid
Power shift? USAID and localisation
Belt and Road Initiative in Malaysia – a tool for domestic political elites
Fewer adjectives, more focus on economic growth for development
Aid’s quiet achiever? An update on Japan’s development assistance
The spiralling debt crisis, and what to do about it
The Pacific and Timor-Leste
The Pacific digital transformation: is everyone a winner?
Social protection in the Pacific and Timor-Leste: the state of play
Insurance for all in the Pacific
Shifting the dial on child malnutrition in the Pacific and Timor-Leste
‘Pacific family’: what does it really mean?
Pacific Islands and geopolitics
Washington’s charm offensive and the US-Pacific Island Country Summit
What the US should do in Solomon Islands
Smiles in Suva: the 51st Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting
‘Partners in the Blue Pacific’ initiative rides roughshod over established regional processes
The Pacific is not a geostrategic chessboard
PNG
PNG’s Sovereign Wealth Fund: the clock is ticking
Revisiting the Morauta central banking reforms
No fall in mobile internet prices in PNG
Papua New Guinea: government, economy and society
Introducing the PNG MP Database
Plus analysis and commentary on the 2022 PNG elections.
Fiji
Fiji’s economy in an election year
Pacific migration and labour mobility
Pacific temporary workers in Australia seeking asylum
Brain drain concerns and solutions
The RSE scheme: raising standards to change the narrative
Labour mobility in the Pacific: transformational and/or negligible?
Australia’s new Pacific Engagement Visa
Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific: the difference is migration
A pathway to permanency for Pacific meat workers
Pacific labour mobility growth: winners and losers
Personal stories
Reflecting on two months in Port Moresby
Art and violence in Papua New Guinea
Why many Papua New Guineans reject the COVID-19 vaccine, and why I changed my mind
Life of an international aid worker in a COVID-19 world
Thanks for sharing such an excellent blog, Karen: wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New year 2023
Thanks for sharing your blog with us, such a really amazing blog