As my coauthors and I explained in our recent report on aid flows, the Australian government focuses much of its aid on just a few countries. By doing this, it’s following best practice. Australia is one of the world’s leading donors in this respect. But that’s not quite the end...
Category - Aid and development
Shifting parameters of civic space in Southeast Asia
In 2019 and 2020, The Asia Foundation embarked upon an inquiry into the changing nature of civic spaces in many parts of Southeast Asia. Through interviews and focus groups with over 450 people in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Timor-Leste, we sought to...
Australia should advocate for developing countries at the G7
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has invited Australia, along with India and South Korea, to attend this year’s prestigious Group of Seven Leaders’ Summit in June. This is a rare opportunity for Australia to contribute to policy discussions with the largest advanced economies in the world...
Piecework in horticulture: should there be a floor?
Where individual effort can be clearly measured, many employers prefer to pay their workers per unit of output rather than per hour. That is, they prefer piecework to hourly rates. One advantage of piecework is that employers can avoid the new Horticulture Award requirement to pay workers an...
Is aid neo-colonial?
Long ago, in a country many miles from where I currently sit, I worked on an aid project. It has...
Seasonal Worker Programme under threat
Several factors are threatening the viability of the Seasonal Worker Programme (SWP). These include...
The impact of COVID-19 on foreign aid
Across the Global South, the COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of socioeconomic progress...
Will famine prompt Australia to look beyond the Indo-Pacific?
There is a saying in international development: wars are hard to stop, famines are not. 2021 may be...
India’s vaccine diplomacy: made in India, shared with the world
On 1 March 2021, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the first dose of Covaxin – India’s...
Worldview pluralism: part 2 – COVID-19 implications
When we started researching violent accusations of witchcraft and sorcery in Papua New Guinea in...