Comments

Hi Freddy, Thank you for pointing out the dismal state of PNG Power Limited. Privatisation could provide some relief but it will probably be a bandage solution to the root cause in governance and management. Many households in PNG are not economically stable to meet the often rigid expectations of private enterprises so privatisation will raise issues of affordability etc. Lastly, there's this issue of invoking 'state of emergency.' The current situation is a precedent. Partial privatisation will mean the Minister sharing the 'state of emergency' powers under the Essential Services Act with a corporate agency. Unless there's proper legislative guidelines, such partnership can easily lead to abuse by a Minister compelled by private interest. Regards, Bal

Thanks for this synopsis which I am sure will be of benefit to those who are still learning about Vanuatu. I hope it will provide a platform for you and others to share your thoughts and ideas about what policy makers in Vanuatu, Australia and elsewhere need to know and think about as we move from the humanitarian phase into recovery and rebuilding, not only of houses, schools and hospitals but also of livelihoods and the overall economy - I have yet to see where this thinking is being done or shared. The government of Vanuatu has mobilised a World Bank/UNDP team to work with them to conduct a Post Disaster Needs Assessment that will arrive at a dollar figure for government to present to a joint meeting of donors in a few weeks time. This will almost certainly create more questions than answers. I will be summarising my thoughts on this (so far) on this blog: www.tncpacificconsulting.com which I hope will become a platform for people to share local knowledge and thinking and aggregate ideas that can be drawn upon by policy makers in the future.

Hi Sonja, Thanks for your comment. I want to respond as one of the editors of this blog, We publish articles representing all points of view, as long as they are of a good standard. I would be surprised then if this article was full of errors as you claim. We also proofread all the articles we publish so I would also be surprised if there were lots of typos. At the same time, we always welcome feedback, and we would be very grateful if you could point out some of the errors you think the article contains, whether they are errors of substance of typos. This would also strengthen your argument. It is not convincing to say that the article if full of errors but not to give any examples. Regards, Stephen Howes.

Hi Bal, great observations and summary on the current state of affairs in the PNG political scene. we are definitely caught in a crossroad and a real test to our democracy and independence and impartiality of our judiciary, especially in the PM O'Neill case. Hopefully the high profile convictions of leaders will send a clear message to our leaders regarding corruption and mismanagement of taxpayers money meant for development purposes. On the other hand, the declaration of emergency on PPL looks suspicious but I certainly agree with the Minister that PPL need to be revitalized and partially privatized to provide better electricity services to Papua New Guineans including those in the rural areas. Right not its in complete chaos and does not function like an important state entity is supposed to function. cheers, freddy

Nothing to be gained by going against him? Have you not considered the fight for the rule of law by Sam Koim, Kauba, Eluh, Damaru, Gitua?

Thanks for your comments Deborah (I found them!). I have been collecting together some various thoughts about how best Vanuatu can be supported as we move from relief into recovery and rebuilding. You will find them here: www.tncpacificconsulting.com and I would invite you and others to contribute by way of comment and content to what I hope will be a forum where meaningful, practical and appropriate ideas can be canvassed and developed so that they are available to policy makers whether within Vanuatu or elsewhere.

Thank you for enjoying this #DevelopmentAprilFools: Devpolicy for being game, Owen for spreading the joke and Laurence for your generous comments. Alas, there has been no ruling requiring donors to cough up their unpaid aid, nor a ‘reverse HIPC’ to help them with their ‘moral creditworthiness’. Yet the blog does have a serious message--ODA over the last forty years has been just a fraction of the amount promised. As the world reviews progress on the MDGs and steps forwards into the SDG era, it is worth reflecting on what might have been achieved if the 0.7% target had been met, and what could be achieved if it is...

As a friend of Vanuatu over many years, I would like to support and echo your comments about resilience and community capacity to respond. Collectivism is a very deeply held value in Vanuatu (albeit sometimes tested in urban settings) and this enables people to share available resources and support each other in challenging times. It is inspiring to see that the thoughtful disaster preparedness plans made by Vanuatu communities and organisations, albeit highly tested by Pam's impact, are being applied in practice across the country. It is also good to hear hints of humility and respect for local leadership being shown by external contributors to Vanuatu's recovery, in this context, although it strikes me there is always room for more of this. There is clearly space for external support in the critical stages after an event such as Cyclone Pam: lessons learned from other disasters confirm the critical importance of supporting local leadership and other institutional and community capacity rather than supplanting it, even in the early stages. While material resources may well be appropriate in many cases, local networks, leadership and collectivist behaviour can also make big contributions to recovery in the longer term. For external contributors, it will be important to maintain (and perhaps temporarily boost, if requested) existing long-term partnerships, development programs and business-as-usual arrangements during the recovery process, despite the short-term challenges. It will also be strategically important for external players to consider what they can do to help prevent the recurrence of such major weather events which may be an effect of human-caused climate change!

Professor, after reading your above article I can summarise that the said regime and rule unmistakeably resembles "Qualities of a prince" chpt 14-19. (Niccolo Marchiavelli-The Prince).

Hi Rebecca, Great comment thank you. I definitely take your point about the political economy on the donor side of the equation, and it is depressing to see just how quickly learning can be swept away by a change of government, and the arrival of a new Minister who really wants to build runways, or whatever. That being said, I think/hope there is also some space for what we learn to influence policy in a more lingering way, just as you hope that there is still scope for individual aid workers to improve things even when matters political economy go awry at the donor end. And while it's true (as I acknowledge in the post) that some aid workers have been well aware of these issues it didn't seem to me when I started my research as if all the intellectual dots had been connected when it came to understanding Solomons politics and what politics mean for aid. And I still don't think that the facts of the country's political economy are as well connected to the way the aid world thinks about development in Solomons as they could be. Hence my post. On the importance of individual civil servants at the recipient end: I definitely agree, it's not all incentives and the problems of politics, and there is some scope for change, as well as many admirable individuals labouring away under commissions which would have had me give up long ago. And I definitely agree it is worth working with and encouraging such reformers (an argument I'd try and smuggle in, retrospectively, under point 4 above). But I think -- on the basis of the political trajectories of other countries -- that without political change there are still severe constraints on what can be achieved by individual civil servants alone (much as I agree that it is worth still working with reformers). On capacity building - I think you put it well and I agree (although I would say "help", rather than "work"). Thanks again. Terence

Professor Jan Kees van Donge. Your article is full of errors - incorrect statements; not entirely correct statements/incorrect information plus typo's. A copy of your article was shared with our admin team earlier today and I advised a co-admin not to share it on PNG NEWS (PNG's largest social media news forum where we now have more than 102,000 members) because of all the errors. I believe it has already been deleted from The Voice of PNG - another large & popular PNG forum on Fb. Personally I am surprised that any Professor of Political Science could publicly make such errors and I am surprised that the Blogmaster of this site never detected all the errors and went ahead and published it.

Hi Terence, Great post, most of which I agree with! But I have to admit that as I read your post with an overwhelming sense of despair. Your points are all well made and (mostly) spot on. But, without meaning any offence to you, none of it is new. I find it both fascinating and distressing that we are still having to “tell” donors this information. Everything said here has been said to and said by donors in the Solomon Islands before. So while I totally agree that understanding and learning to work with the political economy in Solomon Islands is critical, I think we also need to understand the political economy of donors - and why there is such an inability to learn and to change the way they work at the operational level, where it counts. Indeed, it feels to me that things have actually gone backwards in terms of the way donors are working in Solomon Islands. My sense is that over the last couple of years, the organisational behaviour of at least some donors and their ability (or willingness) to adapt ways of working to the context in Solomon Islands has deteriorated not improved. Your analysis of the political economy in Solomon Islands could easily be turned onto the donor organisations, and I suspect we might come up with some of the same conclusions! Having said that, I also think it is important not to treat donors as a homogenous group and to diminish the agency of individuals working within donor organisations. Just as it is important not to do the same to public servants in Solomon Islands. And this is where I do disagree with you somewhat, in that I think you under-estimate the ability (and will) of public servants to create positive change, albeit in small ways. Public servants are not entirely powerless under corrupt politicians – just as aid workers are not entirely powerless under (at times) ineffective donor organisations. There is much in the day-to-day work of service delivery that goes on without being captured by the whims of corrupt politicians or other elites. I agree that pushing through large-scale reform is unlikely to be achieved by public servants without the support of political elites and they do face repeated barriers even in just getting simple things done, But I do think there is potential to do more than just ‘holding together’ and there are effective, committed, energetic public servants within the system trying to create change – and sometimes succeeding. Also while I agree with you that donors focus on training and ‘capacity building’, as its typically delivered by donors, is probably not that helpful, I disagree that donors should therefore focus more on providing TA to hold things together. In my experience I would argue that at times donors default reaction of dumping a TA or inline staff into a department actually creates barriers to progress and is counterproductive. Instead, finding ways to support the emergent strengths within particular departments, whether that be particular individuals who are demonstrating will and ability for progressive change, or new mechanisms or processes that are evolving from within, taking advantage of windows for change that might open up. For me, this is what capacity development is actually about – not just training and TA – and it can work. This is backed by numerous studies and evaluations that have come out of Solomon Islands over the last decade or more. But just as you argue, it needs to also be based on a good understanding of the political economy of the situation as well as a really good understanding of the cultural and personal dynamics involved; something donors are spectacularly bad at as they rotate their staff every couple of years, rely on short term (and yes, even 3 years is short term) advisers, and value technical expertise over understanding of the cultural/social context. Hem no moa.