Comments

Thanks Grant and Husnia. The graph is interesting. Could you add to the analysis the trend based on actual expenditure, not just budget promises? Looking at actual government behaviour rather than promises appears to tell the opposite story - so one of "bust with minor boom" instead of "boom and bust". Specifically, and this is just looking at the graph, for the 2011 to 2012 period, there was no "boom" based on actual expenditure. Indeed, there was a reduction in actual expenditure from 0.4% to about 0.38%. This reduction in actual expenditure continued through to 2017 (with some bumps). So by 2017, it had fallen to about 0.25% - so a very large reduction of over one-third in anti-corruption funding as a share of the budget. And then it started to increase during the tail end years of the O'Neill government. So "boom and bust" on promises, "bust with minor boom" on the actual expenditure figures? Of course, we haven't as yet seen the "actuals" for the Marape Government. On legislation, did the O'Neill Government get the ICAC Bill through two successful Parliamentary votes? With respect Paul

Very interesting. Hope to see this economy revive and pick up once the travel bubble is opened.

Shabana, sorry about your friend but the only way for these Fijians to make it home is for flights to resume. And that's going to require tourism to fill those planes and get them on regular scheduled service again. Plus there are people stuck in Fiji who need to go their families in other countries. This pandemic isn't going to look any different a year from now. Just as it doesn't look any different from four months ago when we locked down. We can't stay in this no-travel configuration for another year. And Fiji's been pinning its hopes on this travel bubble. As I stated in this article, Australia wasn't/isn't ready. Fiji's wasting time reopening waiting for other countries to include it in a bubble (where it will be a complete afterthought). Fiji needs to control their own destiny and make a travel system that allows it to reopen immediately . . . or realize it will be in this same position a year from now (which is unsustainable).

This use of the multi stakeholder engagement strategy is clearly effective in mining and other resource related policy and program developments and it is also proving useful in humanitarian disaster response, where some civil society structure remains. In particular it is effective in that it can empower and facilitate women and other minority interests' participation. Without such engagement the long term or even short term success is limited.

Is Pngsdp in operation.

""Learning and adaptation" should be a very good step. Going through the financial narrative I learned that it will be hard to achieve the inclusive growth as recommended by UN 2030 Agenda because the Big Financial Actors although having issues new rules of the game, the didn't adapt the strategy. Why? There is more than one reason, the prevalent one is in the fact it should be lessened the dominant role of the finance in the economy. By the way, it is very strange that in changing time, economists, commentators and analysts don't use the theory of change. We did id: THE THEORY OF CHANGE APPLIED TO FINANCE FOR DEVELOPMENT http://reader.ilmiolibro.kataweb.it/v/1252660/the-theory-of-change-applied-to-finance-for-development_1268103

"DFAT had to a large extent delegated responsibility for the Pacific to AusAID". You would expect me to disagree, and I do. DFAT worked hand in glove with AusAID and I have the very best recollection of the collegiality of my AusAID colleagues. But just during my tenure of the job in DFAT, DFAT was the lead agency on our two big Pacific initiatives - RAMSI, of which it supplied the head, and the Enhanced Cooperation Programme in PNG. DFAT was lead agency on Forum issues, managed the response to the coup in Fiji and the riots in Tonga, and at an earlier stage than the above led the drive to get Bob Dunn into the SPC. We wrote the paper on compacts which formed the basis for Mr Downer's speech on that subject and was translated into PM Rudd's approach to the Pacific. We did initial work on labour mobility but that didn't get as far as we would have liked because of reluctance at the top levels of government. I could go on (and on), but you get the picture. In short, DFAT did not delegate responsibility for the Pacific to AusAID, although, as I hope I've made clear, we worked very closely with AusAID.

Thanks Moses for this article, an interesting read. I don't like the idea of the death penalty and appreciated some of the points you raised on why the death penalty won't deter crime.

I would like to thank Dek Joe Sum for this initiative for our UPNG students for the 2019 ANU-UPNG Summer School. It was a wonderful job and I would pretty much appreciate it so much. On Behalf of my two colleague mates back in our National High school (Wawin), I am so grateful for your kindness. Next, I am pretty much sure NID was a new project implemented in PNG under Organic Law that all citizens should register under Civil and Identity Registration office for PNG citizenship. However, it is not easy dealing with a new project. It will need more time for them to get it done. University of Goroka (UOG)

Sorry if I oppose your ideas. However I would suggest that if more machines for NID are available, it would be quicker and make it easier for NID officers to issue the NID as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, we are [working] with NID technicians to fix and do maintenance on broken machines; hiring technicians overseas to fix the NID machines would waste lots of time.

Really informative and insightful article, thank you.

Thanks Ian, great quote. You would think that, with England being home to influential conservative thinkers such as Burke (for a time) and Oakeshott, as well as writers of beautiful conservative prose like Lewis, people like Johnson might have acquired an aversion to radical change. Not in the world of aid, it seems.