It has been a big year for Devpolicy. In April, we claimed we had achieved “proof of concept” And in November, we were able to announce a funding basis for the next five years, thanks to generous support from the Harold Mitchell Foundation, and matching funding from the ANU. We thank you for your support in 2012 and look forward to your continuing engagement in 2013.
Welcoming Robin Davies as our new Associate Director
We end the year by welcoming Robin Davies as our new Associate Director. Robin will be known to many of you. He has spent the past ten years as a senior executive at AusAID, both in Australia and overseas, playing a number of critical roles, including leading Australia’s emergency response to the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, representing Australia on the G20 development agenda, and shaping Australia’s response on a range of critical issues from climate change financing to public-private partnerships. Robin has been a Visiting Fellow at Devpolicy since February 2012. His appointment as Associate Director will greatly strengthen our policy and research capacity going into 2013.
Upcoming event: Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?
Michael Clemens, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Global Development
Thursday 17 January @ 12.30 (light lunch from 12pm)
Acton Theatre, Level 1, JG Crawford Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU
Registration here.
We’ve wrapped up our events for 2012 (a total of 28, up from 20 in 2011). We start again in 2013 on January 17, with Michael Clemens, one of the world’s leading economists on migration. Michael, who will be visiting Devpolicy in January 2013 to undertake research on the Asia Pacific Technical College, will present his recent Journal of Economic Perspectives paper.
Michael argues that one of the biggest growth opportunities in the world economy lies not in the mobility of goods or capital, but in the mobility of labour. Barriers to emigration deserve a research priority that is commensurate with their likely colossal economic effects. His presentation will investigate the barriers to emigration from developing countries and sketches a four-point research agenda on the effects of emigration.
Recent event: Aid from emerging Asia: Asian perspectives on development cooperation and global development challenges
Thursday 29 November
This forum, co-hosted by the Asia Foundation, provided a unique opportunity to hear from senior development cooperation officials and experts from China, India, Indonesia and Korea, who discussed their own countries’ growing aid programs, as well as international issues such as the post-2015 development agenda. The video of the event here, as well as presentations here are well worth checking out.
PNG facility survey complete
The survey phase for the PNG PEPE (Promoting Effective Public Expenditure) project, a joint undertaking with PNG’s National Research Institute, has been completed on time and within budget. The facility and expenditure tracking survey, undertaken by eight teams covering a province each, ran from October to December. Data was collected on more than 200 schools and 150 health facilities. For a compelling account of the difficulties faced in collecting data from remote regions, read Program Manager Colin Wiltshire’s recent blog post. We expect to deliver the first results of the survey in 2013.
In other PEPE news, the next PNG Budget Forum has been confirmed to take place on February 6 2013. More details to come.
Discussion Paper 25: Pacific and Caribbean integration: between a rock and a hard place?
Bob Warner
In the latest Devpolicy Discussion Paper, Bob Warner argues that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) experience questions elements of the logic and overall approach to integration being pursued in the Pacific. Bob argues that regional economic integration is the wrong model for regions “with broadly similar endowments and an absence of connecting land borders, regional trade and factor market integration will not act as a major driver of growth.” He instead argues for “regional institutional integration, and development of shared institutions.” You can read a summary of his Discussion Paper in his accompanying blog post here.
Blog posts
Here is a list of Devpolicy blog posts (organised thematically) since our last newsletter, a month ago.
Blog digest
November blog digest: the Mitchell donation | Caribbean crisis: lessons for the Pacific by Stephen Howes.
Aid
Aid effectiveness and the scale-up: the price of asylum-seeker cost shifting by Stephen Howes
Do NGOs make a difference, and how would you know? by Andrew Rowell.
AusAID and transparency: good progress and a way to go by Jonathan Pryke.
Climate finance at Doha: what’s the damage? by Frank Jotzo and Jonathan Pickering.
AusAID Higher Education Forum: universities and education for development by Robert Cannon.
The war against poverty starts with a battle of ideas by Harold Mitchell.
The judgement of their peers: an interview with the OECD’s Karen Jorgensen by Karen Jorgensen and Robin Davies.
Effective and efficient agricultural R&D: lessons from 20 years in the field by Robyn Alders.
Development
Careers in development: an interview with Amanda Jupp on private contractors, AYAD and MSF by Amanda Jupp and Jonathan Pryke.
Participation for development: a good time to be alive by Robert Chambers.
What went on at the Challenges for Participatory Development conference? by Colum Graham.
Who pays, and who benefits, from increased tobacco taxation in Asia by Ian Anderson.
Careers in development: an interview with Dinuk Jayasuriya on the private sector, World Bank Group and academia by Dinuk Jayasuriya and Jonathan Pryke.
Participation and development under fire by Patrick Kilby.
Mistakes the poor make: Esther Duflo’s Tanner Lectures by Terence Wood.
What is One Health? by Penny Farrell.
Democracy soon to be tested in Sierra Leone by Greg Rublee.
Pacific
Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration: an empty commitment or a real opportunity? by Sean Mackesy-Buckley.
Development in the Pacific islands: what can we learn from experience? by Tony Hughes.
Pacific and Caribbean integration: between a rock and a hard place? by Bob Warner.
PNG
Strongim Gavman Program in PNG reviewed by John Eyers.
Growing the future, but can government manage the risks? PNG’s 2013 Budget by Aaron Batten.
Service delivery realities in Gulf Province, PNG by Colin Wiltshire.
Planning for a more productive informal economy in PNG by John Conroy and Busa Jeremiah Wenogo.
Buzzes
Pacific Buzz (December 19): 2012 in review by Devpolicy-PiPP.
Education Buzz (December 7): Education progress in Afghanistan | A policy failure in Indonesia? | More by Robert Cannon and Colum Graham.
Development Buzz (December 5): Progress in Afghanistan | Resilient remittances | So long AMFm | More by Jonathan Pryke.
Pacific Buzz (November 28): Timor and the New Deal | PNG and Fiji budgets | More by Devpolicy-PiPP.
Aid Buzz (November 21): Malaria2012 v medical R&D | AusAID transparency & web watch | Annual Review imminent? | More by Stephen Howes and Jonathan Pryke.
Aid and Asia Buzz (November 16): Myanmar quake | UK to end India aid | Malala aid | More by Ashlee Betteridge.
