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In recent years, thanks to ODE, program evaluations have regularly been published online (i.e. those commissioned by program areas and posts). For me personally that has meant having a clutch of recent evaluations published online having had none published by the Australian government since 1999! I now wonder if this commitment to publish will evaporate. Indeed I wonder about the fate of program evaluations more generally given that it was ODE that seemed to be able to apply effective pressure on program areas and posts to commission a minimum number of evaluations each year. Will we ever see another annual evaluation plan?

Back in 2013 I attended a seminar in which the Secretary of the Dept of Finance praised ODE as being the best evaluation unit in any Commonwealth department. Abolishing ODE also seems inconsistent with the recommendations of the APS (Thodey) review on the need to strengthen the evaluation function in Commonwealth departments. These recommendations were supported by the Government in their response to the review when they stated “we will keep focussed on what works - building the capacity of the APS to evaluate how policies and programs are going and embedding evaluation into everyday practice in the APS”.

Thanks Stephen. A good summary, and a sad commentary.

Thank you Stephen for an accurate reflection on this sorry state of affairs

Of relevance to this issue, the following biometric verification news: “Papua New Guinea pilots biometric voter rolls Fingerprint and face biometrics will be used for voter enrollment and electoral roll verification in Papua New Guinea, according to Loop PNG. Voter registration and biometric enrollment for Kupiano Ward 5’s local level government by-election will be conducted by the PNG Electoral Commission. Local government documents will subtract deceased voters and add those who have turned 18 in the ward to the eligibility list. PNG Electoral Commission Acting Deputy Commissioner Simon Sinai announced the pilot will take place from October 3 to 7, 2020. He also said the government agencies responsible for the project can overcome the challenges it will entail be working together.” Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202009/innovatrics-biometrics-remove-200000-ineligible-voters-from-electoral-rolls-in-guinea

Critical issue and important to raise it. I would be interested to know if the data was sex disaggregated and if there was any gender analysis, including links to the increasing failure of boys in education.

I tend to agree with this assessment. At a time when the ADB, IADB, WB, and even still DFID (FCDO now, specifically their Research and Evidence division) have strong and getting stronger internal research and impact evaluation units (and strong academic linkages and external partnerships in this regard, doing proper research), it has hard to not see this as a big backwards step and yet another potential boon for the consulting industry. Unfortunate, really, since we were already a bit of a laggard in many respects.

Well said!

Article is written with a short term focus with not enough balance on how the economy needs to diversify. One only needs to drive through the previous farm lands to see it over grown or rather a bushland with trees ready to be milled. The current state of the country is the same as it is for most small tourism dependent countries. Yes I agree there is a need for the western countries that have exploited the colonial countries they managed to give back. Be it the banana import or the pineapple or sugar or gold or the intellectual capital and lastly not to mention the capital flight with every skilled migration. 12k people migrate every year with roughly $40k cash in hand or roughly 580 million dollars ... 580 MILLION DOLLARS. What the country really needs to do is, reduce expenditure, re-establish farming, free trade agreement like the sugar cane EU scheme, establish an agreement of the Pacific nations on fishing rights, grant scheme that is a percentage of capital flight targeted purely for infrastructure with acquittal to say the least.

Well said.

Australia may need a Pacific compact, but I’m not sure that the Pacific does. Luke Gosling suggests “These ideas for a new Pacific compact should be handled respectfully, seriously and urgently.” This echoes John Blaxland’s concerns that the issue should be debated with an open mind, and should not be perceived as neo-colonial or paternalistic. In an exchange in Australian Foreign Affairs, I’ve argued that John Blaxland’s proposal for Compacts of Free Association with Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and (!) Tonga, has fundamental flaws. https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/articles/correspondence/2020/09/response-to-john-blaxlands-developing-a-grand-compact-for-the Solomon Islands’ scholar Tarcisius Kabautalaka also writes: “John Blaxland’s proposal for a ‘grand compact for the Pacific’ is Australia-centric and marginalises Pacific islander voices. It highlights Australia’s continuing struggle to define its relationship with the region as well as its concerns about the changing geopolitical order as China’s influence grows.” https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/articles/correspondence/2020/09/response-to-john-blaxlands-developing-a-grand-compact-for-the-0 Gosling, like Blaxland, has seized upon Anote Tong’s support for the Compact proposal. But this should be judged by Tong’s long history of support for ‘migration with dignity’, a policy that has won little support from the new Kiribati government, or leaders in Tuvalu and Nauru. See my DevPolicy story from 2012 on Tong's migration policy : https://devpolicy.org/kiribati_migration_climate_change20120112/ Australian politicians want a respectful discussion about the Compact, but they should honestly address the drivers of the policy, which include concerns about strategic denial in the islands (aimed especially at China). This may be another factor in Anote Tong’s attitude to the idea, given his longstanding support for Taiwan (his father having fled the PRC as a refugee). Kevin Rudd’s similar proposal for a Compact in 2019 was labelled as "imperial thinking" because Tuvalu's then Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga saw the Compact proposal as both a denial of Pacific sovereignty and a way out for successive Australian governments that have failed to develop a climate policy.

Fiji needs all the support especially from Australia at this difficult time. As our Pacific neighbor we rely on them at this difficult time.