Next PNG budget forum
The next Papua New Guinea Budget Forum will be held on the morning of Thursday 25 September at the National Research Institute in Port Moresby. We will be launching our joint report with NRI based on the extensive fieldwork undertaken across PNG as part of the Promoting Effective Public Expenditure (PEPE) Project. Further research findings to be presented at the forum will assess the impact of recent donor interventions, medical supplies and textbook delivery, as well the controversial District Services Improvement Program, which puts development funds in the hands of MPs to spend in their own electorates.
The budget forum is a free event and open to the public to attend. For further details please contact Colin Wiltshire or Ron Sofe.
New NRI partnership
We’re also happy to announce that we have entered into a new partnership with the National Research Institute (NRI). Under this partnership, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, an ANU academic will be based at NRI to promote research and collaboration on public resource management in PNG. We’re delighted to be taking our cooperation with NRI to the next level, and will shortly be announcing the new research fellow who will be taking up this position. The University of New South Wales is entering into a similar partnership with NRI, under the leadership of Professor Satish Chand.
Professionalism, autonomy and the organisation of Australian aid
There is significant interest in how aid money is spent but, despite the fact that governments have a history of restructuring aid bureaucracies in search of altered outcomes, we know less about the organisations that administer it. This new project seeks to document how the Australian government has organised the administration of its aid program since it first established the Australian Development Assistance Agency in the early 1970s. It seeks to make sense of the ideas, events and practices that have shaped the rise and fall of the different bureaucratic entities tasked with managing the program over four decades, and, more recently, informed the shift from a relatively modest and bipartisan effort to a scaled-up and increasingly controversial enterprise.
This research is being conducted by Jack Corbett, a Research Fellow with Griffith University. We’re happy to be supporting Jack in his research. If anyone would like to volunteer to help Jack in putting together this history of AusAID and its previous iterations, he can be contacted at jack.corbett@griffith.edu.au.
Upcoming events
Poverty in Asia: a deeper look
On 28 August, Dr Guanghua Wan of the Asian Development Bank will argue that an Asia free of poverty by 2020 looks unlikely. Register here.
Securitisation of aid and NGOs post-9/11
On 2 September, Professor Jude Howell from LSE will argue that the securitisation of NGOs post-9/11 has raised practical issues about aid delivery and the security of NGO workers. Register here.
Voice and Agency: empowering women and girls for shared prosperity
On 25 September, Jeni Klugman, Senior Advisor at the World Bank, will launch a new report on gender equality. PNG’s Dame Carol Kidu, Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick and DFAT’s Ewen McDonald will discuss the findings. Register here.
Asia and the Pacific Policy Society Conference 2014: Confronting the Pacific’s health challenges
Our Crawford School colleagues are hosting a conference on 17-18 September looking at practical policy approaches for addressing Pacific health issues. More details here.
PNG’s lost decade? An assessment of service delivery progress and expenditure reforms
The next PNG budget forum will be held on 25 September at NRI in Port Moresby. It is a free event, open to all. For further details please contact Colin Wiltshire or Ron Sofe.
2015 Australasian Aid Conference
Our annual aid conference will be held on 12-13 February 2015. We are now calling for papers and registrations are open, with early bird pricing until 21 November. For details, visit the website.
Blog highlights
Are scholarships good aid?
Julia Newton-Howes on the economic diplomacy agenda.
What has the AusAID-DFAT integration meant for local staff?
Blog summary
You can find a list of all posts since our last newsletter two weeks ago in the list below.
Using the c-word: Australian anti-corruption policy in Papua New Guinea by Grant Walton and Stephen Howes
Why is Timor-Leste trying to restrict the media? By Ashlee Betteridge
Scholarships and the aid program (part one): waste of money or effective aid? By Joel Negin
Scholarships and the aid program (part two): emerging results of research into scholarships in three African countries by Joel Negin
Scholarships and the aid program (part three): future directions for a scholarship program with impact by Joel Negin
Australia’s economic diplomacy: is this good development? By Julia Newton-Howes
Reflections on the new aid paradigm, part 4: aid in hazard by Robin Davies
Local staff and aid effectiveness: does integration matter? By Ben Davis and Rivandra Royono
China’s second white paper on foreign aid: impressive growth in 2010–12 by Denghua Zhang
Gender based violence in Papua New Guinea: the case of the missing medical report by Inez Mikkelsen-Lopez
In brief
Two-thirds of PNG businesses employ security guards: World Bank
PNG gender violence in the headlines
Does fragmentation make aid unpredictable?
Women’s entrepreneurship works better with friends
Are clean cookstoves a cooked up ‘solution’ to sexual violence?
This is the fortnightly newsletter of the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, published every second Friday.
