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

Is PNG’s economic bust over?

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 choice

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

Farewells

Tributes to Brij Lal

Bikpla kumul i pundaun: the political life of Sam Basil

Ben Micah: admission and contrition