Comments

Interesting article Robin. Of interest to DFAT may be the upcoming ICAI review of DFID's treatment of impact, see TOR here: http://icai.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ICAI-Impact-ToRs-FINAL-040314.pdf . You suggest that DFAT should consider organisational and administrative factors more when assessing performance. The imminent ICAI review will be looking at the role that DFID's processes and tools (i.e. theories of change, country strategies, the reams of documents that guide program implementation etc) play in the 'delivery of impact'. A laudable goal, but a tough gig when you don't know what the impact is in the first place!!

Well said Tom. looking forward to reading your book.

Peter, thank for your response and I couldn't agree more about your concerns regarding the need to improve people to people links between PNG and Australia. Pacific Conversations was introduced to the Devpolicy blog as a way of getting Pacific voices onto a platform that has a lot of Australian readers and I hope others will, like you, be looking out for Stella to buy and enjoy. I am also involved in the Australia-Papua New Guinea Network - you can find out more about that here: http://auspng.lowyinstitute.org/

I like to comment Tess on giving Papua New Guineans an opportunity to air their views on the relationship between Australia in many aspects. It seems government to government is working, there is dialogue between both countries however the ordinary people of both countries do not seem to know each other well. Amanda's honest expression of what she thinks about that relationship is commendable having coming from both backgrounds. From my own experiences down under, I find it difficult to come to terms with when I said I am from PNG and the wantok (the Australian friend) doesn't know a thing about where PNG is! This is ridiculous because at least on average, a PNGan knows a thing or two about Australia and yet the Australians seem ignorant about PNG, which is just above them in the north! I think Australian schools should put more emphasis on PNG in geography lessons if they want to call us neighbours. PNG is just less than 3 or so hours from Cairns or Brisbane! The positive note on this relationship at the moment is the endless trips to and from both countries in sports related travels. Other groups like womens' fellowships, youth groups, church groups and NGOs need to bring both countries together by having exchange arrangements to really filter into both countries to show that we are close friends! Amanda's Stella is a positive way to bridge the gap between both genders in PNG and Australia! To be honest I saw Stella on bookshelves and adverts but have no clue what it was until now. I will have to purchase one and read and am sure my three daughters will want to read it as we are all bookworms. I want my daughters to be someone rather than someone's tool and Stella should give them that confidence. Thank you Amanda for being honest about your country PNG, unlike others who pretend to be someone else rather than being frank about their nationality.

The Australian government would probably argue that it is spending a lot on humanitarian assistance, around $3 billion a year, in the form of off-shore processing of asylum seekers. In the view of the current government and its predecessor, this is saving lives and therefore could be considered a form of humanitarian assistance. While some of us may think $3 billion could be spent in much better ways, e.g. restoring our ODA to the target of reaching 0.7% of GNI, that has little traction with our current crop of politicians.

Hi Margaret - interesting post. But doesn't IFC have skin in the game as well? As a lender to the private sector in developing countries, IFC has an incentive to get a return on that investment. If donors fund IFC (through IFC advisory services) to improve the investment climate (for instance), IFC increases its chances of getting a return on its investment. Although it's a different kind of skin in the game, IFC would also face some reputational and business incentives to generate positive outcomes.

Hi Stephen, I agree it would be nice to be in top ten humanitarian donors. But where do cut further? Where does the $200m come from in an already stretched program of work? I would hope that we would not cut from the long-term efforts of building strong resilient education/health/social systems that would make the need for disaster responses less likely. I am not surprised that humanitarian assistance is popular - AusAID, DFAT and others have not really tried to make the case to the public for longer-term system building. Joel

Interesting article Paul and bang on the money for its impact on the commodity exporters who were being pumped up to increase production with a falling Kina (and at least for coffee growers rising prices due to Brazil's drought), even the larger NCM and ABX miners have not been helped with this fiat revaluation. I feel bound to clarify one point tho' "... by May 2014 a private bank could buy a single USD for K2.44 from the central bank and then immediately sell the USD to an importer for K2.86..." The BPNG maintains a Reference Rate BUT does NOT supply currency at the pegged rate. Every two weeks or so they may sell about K60m worth but this is paltry in comparison to the orders. The fact that the BPNG get on intervening at their reference rate is a significant driver as to the bank profitability in 2013 / 2014! They were advised to tender their intervention amount rather than just use their Reference Rate. The market has been consistently short of foreign currency since 2013 with the imbalance getting bigger over time. However before the June trading band imposition there was some liquidity but price uncertainty which has been swapped for near price certainty but supply uncertainty. Forwards have become progressively harder to transact and are now virtually impossible as they require the acquisition of the currency to hedge (no futures markets exist for PGK) Capex inflows have fallen, the multiplier effect of the Exxon etc capex continues to suck in imports ... and the govt's intended infrastructure spend would have cost a LOT more at the pre-Jun 4 rates ... and the LNG USD inflows will not start til end 2015. Fortunately the independent central bank's policy intervention has reduced this budgetary risk.

The first step in dealing with the 'C' issue in PNG is understanding the cultural differences, as - like it or not - when it comes to anti-corruption efforts, context is king. There then needs to be sufficient political will to put money where the mouth is and turn-the-tap-off! That being said, with 10 politicians having stood aside due to the recent NSW ICAC investigations, along with the ongoing Royal Commission into union corruption, it begs the question as to whether Australia really is genuine about the topic. To avoid being accused of "do what I say not do what I do" it needs to clean up its own act as well.

Really interesting post Margaret. I'll be a bit sceptical of the long-term positive results of E&Y's engagement, at least until I see an independent evaluation - the IFC has no shortage of positive stories. We've written a couple of posts arguing that contractors (such as E&Y in this case) have poorly aligned incentives with donors. (See http://aidleap.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/can-contractors-deliver-change-in-complex-systems-2/ and http://aidleap.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/why-the-private-sector-shouldnt-deliver-aid/). In this kind of large-scale private sector development, however, you make a good point that incentives are better aligned, due to the business and reputational risk. At the same time, so are opportunities for the contractor to promote their own interests, so it would need careful management.

Thanks Margaret for this post and I agree that the 'skin in the game' test is a useful one for establishing if and to what extent aid funding should be provided to multi-national companies. It also reinforces the importance of DFAT, ADB and others investing in understanding the contexts in which they seek to work in Pacific private sector development to ensure that the partners that are selected are the ones best place to contribute to sustainable growth in small and often fragile communities.

39 years on and our founding father suddenly admits to "mistakes" from the beginning, a human rights lawyer proposes policies indirectly opposed to democracy, the PM, senior Ministers and Public servants are centre of many serious controversies and a huge K15-K17 Billion debt...let us celebrate what little time we have before 2017, because if nothing changes we might as well migrate somewhere else for shelter. The deaf and dumb have an excuse to be tolerant, but what about the average person out there, when our representatives are clearly oblivious to our concerns and immediate needs, when they are aloof to the attack on our democratic systems, when the executive body has ears only for major corporations and their interests... Happy 39th year of independence Papua New Guinea, let us celebrate how the nation has survived under ruthless crooks and we pray for the day when independence for our country is less tainted by political greed and incompetence!!