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PNG does not have any problem in terms of the economic development, PNG is rich in every natural resources it is still the best. However, the development program and policy and in place should be adjusted. It is clear indication of the poor management. It is not that we fall in any aspect of our economy. The people involve in decision making are the problem in this country. Concern Citizen...................thanks

Good to see that Rostow’s 1960s modernisation theory of throwing money at aid will result in development still has its proponents, as Howes seems to be suggesting in his condemnation of the recent cuts in the Australian Aid budget. Modernisation theory is in contrast to the impact evaluation literature, the work of Tikly, Pritchett, UNESCO, World Bank, ODE , USAID and DFID who all are saying that despite the huge amounts of aid money thrown at education, students still are not learning after over 50 years of aid. Just to bring those who are in modernisation theory brigade up to 2016, a recent Better Evaluation blog on Impact evaluations identifies the fact that it’s not the quantum of dollars in aid, it’s the impact and the efficiency of the dollars spent that leads to development in host countries. When the education aid industry can deliver improved student learning outcomes, I am sure that the money will be invested again. But after fifty years of lack of impact, one can be excused for thinking students in host countries are categorised as exploitable resources for the aid industry, not children deserving development

Leonard Fong Roka is another Bougainvillean author who has written about the experience of the crisis. His books are available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=Leonard+Fong+Roka&search-alias=books&field-author=Leonard+Fong+Roka&sort=relevancerank" rel="nofollow">Amazon</a>.

I would like to make several brief comments on Anna Maalsen's article and references to distortions, over-reactions and sensationalism I worked for nearly 15 years in PNG, all in health in the provinces, which included 5 years over a ten year period as the provincial health adviser in Daru. I am well acquainted with the MDR TB situation there, its history and outlook With all due respect to Ms Maalsen, I find her dismissal of recent commentaries on MDR-TB on Daru as well-meaning sensationalism to be patronising and wrong. In fact, many in Western Province and many TB experts believe that what is currently known is only 'the tip of the iceberg' The threat posed by MDR TB is undeniable - and recognised by international experts - and it deserves the 'Ebola with Wings' tag. The suggestion that it is no more important or serious than maternal health or violence against women issues does none of these issues justice. MDR TB is different, the threat it poses is real, and the need for urgent and more effective action is clear. Readers who doubt the seriousness of the MDR TB crisis, or imply that there isn't a 'crisis', would be well advised to read Emma McBryde's /Burnet Institute's Scenario Analyses. They would also be well advised to visit Daru and villagers in Western, and talk to health professionals on the ground and the communities affected. The concerns that TB experts have are justified and the fear in communities is well-founded

The global demand for rapid actions to address climate change adverse effects is not effectively mainstreamed into the established government service delivery structures. Low level of capacities and lack of knowledge and information about the mitigation potential like REDD is a new scheme not fully understood by the public to implement in a meaningful way..

Have we ever thought about restructuring the government system to protect it from our cultural norms that tends to manipulate it regardless of the government of the day? I would definitely agree with Gitte Heij above. Blockchain can be an avenue to explore to keep the system clean. Stephen would you have a response to that suggestion?

Thank you Bal for the list. Another important concern that can be added to your analysis lists, PNG debt level over the last two years. Huge borrowing from external and domestic funders-estimated debts has gone up to over K25billion (over the limit of 35% allowed under the Fiscal Management & Responsibility Act) with some due for repayment which the government is unable to repay and has gone into co-financing to repay, further increasing the debts. Many of the economic decisions taken by the government in the last 2 years or so is outside the annual budget limit, therefore the true picture of the country cash flow is not declared, thus kept to few individuals who take a band aid approach by creating one problem to the next. Now PNG have a huge backlog of transactions for foreign exchange while BPNG running out of cash surplus, the recent borrowing of US$300m from IMF to fix the problem will not make much difference. Also the 2016 PNG budget of approximately K16 billion was handed down last November with a projected deficit of K2 billion (maybe to be financed through loans). However, with the current debts and cash flow situation, this projection will be beyond PNG capacity to finance its 2016 budget. No wonder, the reported cases of budget cuts made to PNG education and health services this year like the church health partnerships budget cut is a true reflection of this burden. The future looks frightening now for PNG.

Werner, John and Gerard, you all touched on the different aspects of the issue i.e. international law, respect for sovereignty and the economic and environmental effect from the detention centre. We hope future discussion on asylum seekers detention centres in the region will take account of these aspects. Bal

Werner, Good to hear that the tutorial at UPNG was of some insight. Some of the issues raised here goes to the heart of the doctrine of separation of powers in PNG.

Thanks Stephen for leading the Centre’s vital work in analyzing Australian aid. The Budget Forum was excellent. The key takeout for me is the need to make aid volume the almost exclusive focus of future work by those interested in aid and Australia’s role in the global community. Collectively, we failed in this budget. Even with a substantially new Cabinet, we failed to convince the government to stop the planned additional slashing of aid. Over the last four years, a 30% aid cut in real terms, in the context of 10% real increases elsewhere, is reprehensible. A challenge is how to balance energies and analysis between the overall aid volume story relative to other details on the sectoral allocation, or the geographic allocation, or the partnership allocations etc. For example, yesterday’s blog focused on the cuts in health and education relative to governance. The figures are a bit tricky (see below). But essentially, the percentage fall in education and health is almost exactly proportional to the cuts in health and education. They have pretty much kept their shares of the program at 19% and 14%. They have been cut by around 30% - but the overall aid program has been cut by 30%. Slamming the cuts in health and education is appropriate, but it is almost entirely related to the cuts in the overall volume of aid. Of course there are more detailed choices about how to cut up the shrunken pie, but the key issue is that the pie has shrunken. For those that supported cuts in aid, they would probably be happy if future aid lobbying efforts spent too much time talking about the details of the shrunken allocations rather that the big picture issue of the overall slashing in aid volume. Getting these balances right, essentially a choice on priorities, will be an important factor in rebuilding a development cooperation program. Sectoral details (warning – a bit boring and technical: the key messages are above). There are major challenges with attempting multi-year sectoral comparisons of Australian aid. First, the figures in the new “orange book” do not add up. Taking the sectoral allocations set out as percentages of the overall aid budget of $3,828m and multiplying by the relevant percentages from Figure 1 on page 2 does not come up with the figure shown in the detailed sectoral section of the orange book -from pages 41 to 51. For example, the health sector expenditure estimate is shown as $473.3m on p46. However, Figure 1 indicates the health sector is 13.0% of the 2016-17budget – which is $497.6m. Indeed, about $180m appears to be missing from the base – and this affects all the sectoral allocation estimates. Second, we do not yet know the 2015-16 sectoral outcomes. The best source of information is the percentage estimates from MYEFO documents in February. Staying on the health sector, this implied estimated expenditure of $579.4m. However, we do not know what the actual expenditure was as yet (this sectoral detail was not updated in the orange book, although it did update many other key estimates). Third, the impact of multiyear expenditure timing is very uncertain. For example, once again on the health program, the contributions to “Global Health Programs” are shown as dropping from the MYEFO estimate of $136.6m to only $56.1m in 2016-17 - a reduction of $80.5m. These are explained as not being cuts – simply changes in the timing of multi-year commitments which would still be met. So in other words, the apparent cut in the health sector in the 2016-17 budget is either entirely explained by this re-timing of Global Health Program payments using the p46 health figure ($80.5m of an apparent cut of $81.8m) or 75% of the apparent cut using Figure 1 percentages ($80.5m of an apparent cut of $106.1m). To make this more complicated, and related to the second point, the updated expenditure item for the Global Health Programs is now $181.1m in 2015-16, not $136.6m. It seems that $44.5m was paid early. This means the actual cut in health sector expenditure in 2015-16 is likely to be less than expected. However, with the new base, it also means that the apparent health cuts in 2016-17 will be much larger. All because of the timing of a payment that does not reflect changes in policy intent. Fourth, there are inevitable grey areas in how a project is classified. For example, the excellent support that ANU provides to the University of Papua New Guinea is classified as “governance” sector. The support for the University of the South Pacific is classified as “education sector”. And of course, there are very important linkages between sectors to get real sustainable development so drawing the lines can be somewhat artificial. Fifth, the definitions of sectors changed significantly between 2012-13 and 2013-2014 – so it is difficult to make comparisons at this stage prior to 2013-14 (OECD DAC definitions will provide a consistent sectoral comparison but these won’t be updated for this year’s budget for some time). Sixth, the figures in that base year of 2013-14 are affected by a charging of some $300 million in refugee costs to the humanitarian (or “resilience”) sector. If this is included, it makes it appear that humanitarian aid has taken very large cuts when most of the change is simply not including these costs any more. Treatment of these refugee payments also affects the estimate for the size of overall aid program cuts as well as the starting percentages for all other sectors. Seventh, the largest cuts in the share of the program have come from the “general development support” category (from 13.3% of the program in 2013-14 to 6.8% estimated in 2016-17). It is not clear what this is – so it’s hard to assess the impact of the proportionate cuts relative to the proportionate winners of infrastructure and trade (the biggest sectoral winner since 2013-14), “governance” (which shows a cut in 2016-17 of between $17.1m or $56.2m depending on the issues above) and “Agriculture, fisheries and water”. Paul

Hi Jess, thank you for a raising a very important question about the process of constitutional change. Sections 13-15 of the Constitution set out the process. It authorizes the Parliament to make amendments after a two months notice (first reading). This is obviously different to Australia given its process of referendum. The drafters of the PNG Constitution assumed that PNG political leaders would act responsibly when it comes to constitutional amendments. But it appears to be a challenge. So far, PNG has made forty-three amendments over the last forty years of Independence – a high rate compared to many democracies. So your point is vital i.e. the process of constitutional amendment will have to be looked at. With the current arrangement, the court have found over the years that parliamentary standing orders and opportunity for critical debate are often suppressed due to a majority government and a Speaker that often sides with the government (the Speaker is appointed by the government). Apparent abuses in parliament are non-justiciable but the Courts have take judicial notice of it through Hansard evidence, media etc. The courts in PNG are required to be ‘open, liberal’ and to be politically conscious. They are not to be removed from political realities, but to look beyond the letter of the law to see the politics behind it. For them, a dominant executive against a declining legislature is a cause for concern. Those concerns are taken into account when dealing with issues of constitutionality of amendments and legislation. So Courts in PNG do take an interest to do justice, and not to allow mere processes and procedure get in the way. Some may accuse them of making political decisions but in essence, these are issues of justice coated in politics so courts will have to take a direct interest when brought to its attention.

Neat idea. Couple of questions: 1. What are some of the services that you see being traded on the platform? I can't see the cobblers, key-cutters and seamstresses occupying every corner of Asia's metropolises being able to benefit because their market is saturated with competitors. Client's don't have any trouble finding these services because providers are everywhere, and getting on the web-platform won't result in lower costs for them because competition has already driven the price of the local service provider down to the market clearing level. Where is the incentive for the client? Do you see this functioning more like Alibaba? That is, linking up small businesses (like maybe 3 women making clothes out of someone's house) to larger clients in a kind of subcontracting network? How would you make that straightforward on the interface? 2. How good a mobile phone does someone need to make use of the service? Smart phone costs are coming down, but even $40USD is pretty steep for a lot of the people you are trying to reach, who often don't even have access to electricity to charge a phone. The services that have been effective for such people in the past, like SWIFT, can be accessed through $2 phones. 3. What do see the interface looking like? Does a potential customer search and find listings with associated postage fees like on ebay or alibaba? Is there some geographic sensitivity beyond postage fees so that people are connected to local suppliers? Do you see any difficulties using the platform to connect buyers and sellers of discreet goods vs buyers and sellers of contracts for a bundle of pieces? Do sellers just list their product and then twiddle their thumbs? Can they list a general service or do they need to have a list of goods? 4. Do you foresee the people you are trying to reach being tech- and business-savvy enough to use your platform without some kind of training program? My understanding is that similar operations connecting say, handicrafts workers or weavers of traditional garments to foreign markets typically utilise middle men to get people onto the platform, ensure they are making things to specification, ensure they have the requisite electronic accounts for fund transfers etc. Do you think these things will be problematic for your platform? Do you need to engage with any of this stuff for the purposes of the prize or does all of this come after you win the money?