Newsletter: AAC reaching capacity | PNG in 2017 | Global transparency portal | Blog survey

Last chance for 2017 AAC!

Registrations are going quickly for the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference. If you are planning to attend and haven’t registered yet, now is the time to do so – we expect the conference will sell out again. The highlights will include addresses by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and a keynote by World Bank social development specialist Michael Woolcock, as well as the presentation of the Mitchell Humanitarian Award at the conference dinner.

We’d also like to remind conference attendees that the Aid Supplier Conference, to be held on Friday 17 February, also at ANU, is a separate event organised by DFAT. For more information, contact aidsupplierconference@dfat.gov.au.

PNG in 2017

Find out what 2017 has in store for PNG in terms of both economics and politics. Paul Flanagan predicts another tough economic year, while Bal Kama points to conflicting trends around money politics and voter awareness in the lead up to the June elections.

Global transparency portal

In a recent blog, Robin Davies summarizes a discussion with Rupert Simons, CEO of global campaign for aid transparency Publish What You Fund. Simons notes that the aid effectiveness agenda, including the aid transparency agenda, has ‘gone off the boil internationally’. Davies argues for a global transparency portal to make use of data now potentially available, but currently difficult to access, through the International Aid Transparency Initiative. If you want more, Simons will be speaking at the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference and check out the podcast here.

Devpolicy Blog reader poll

Many thanks to everyone who responded to the request in our last newsletter to fill out our Devpolicy Blog reader poll. We’re eager for your feedback to help us improve the blog, so if you haven’t done so already please fill it out today here. The poll will close on 31 January.

Upcoming events

World Development Report 2017: Governance and the Law
5 – 6.30pm, Tuesday 14 February, Molonglo Theatre, Crawford School, ANU. Details here.

Australasian Aid Conference 2017
14 – 16 February, Crawford School, ANU. Event details here.

Blog highlights

Vanuatu’s seasonal worker rise

PFM in the Pacific: in-line equivocation

The awkwardness of moral saints

Latest podcasts

The state of aid transparency: in discussion with Publish What You Fund

On the blog

PNG in 2017: a year of redefining democracy? By Bal Kama

The Seasonal Worker Program: who is coming to Australia? By Henry Sherrell

Papua New Guinea stumbles to an election by Paul Flanagan

Lessons from public financial management reforms in the Pacific By Nematullah Bizhan

The ingredients of aid transparency: political commitment, consumer pressure, the right tools by Robin Davies

First in class: PNG student migration to Australia by Henry Sherrell and Stephen Howes

The awkwardness of moral saints by Stephen Howes

Priced out of the market: informal settlements in Honiara, Solomon Islands by Luke Kiddle and Meg Keen

Feminist innovations in the Pacific: the inaugural Pacific Feminist Forum by Jane Alver

In brief

Fortnightly links: globalisation, Gambia, cash is best, corruption, Trump, and more


This is the fortnightly newsletter of the 
Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, published every second Friday.

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Development Policy Centre

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