Comments

Very interesting blog, brother.

Thank you, Michael, for sharing your thoughts and experiences major issues regarding gender equality in Papua New Guinea, especially in our society. I love reading your blog and 100% supported your views on addressing gender issues across PNG. Proud of your achievements and hope we all can fight for better future for our country.

Actually the Archbishop of Suva - Dr Peter Loy Chong is correct in his analysis of the Seasonal Workers | Private Scheme Workers in Forestry | Meat Factory workers being brought from Fiji to work in Australia or Aotearoa NZ 🇳🇿. They are somewhat drafted in as a kind of slaves to fill the labour markets. Most have little or no skills and being plucked from the Rural Villages to travel and work overseas with little experience of living and working in a First World Country. These workers from Fiji in particular know little or rudimentary English and struggle to understand the logistics of life outside their comfort zone of being in an Indigenous Fijian Village (s). Some have died after being denied Rights to take sick leave and see a Medical Doctor. Employment Contract in some instances is signed in Fiji with minimum help from a Fijian Language Interpreter. Agreed pay rate and hours have been known to be altered once they are in the new country of employment. The lifestyle these workers have is substandard. The list goes on.

Valid sentiments echoed by Dr. Bal Kama.

We can all appreciate criticisms when they are presented with detail and substantiated counter-facts. Vailala would have us believe the SMLIs for PNG LNG and P'nyang "drifted into absurdities". There were in total 7 researchers across these projects all with PhDs, 10+ years researching/teaching in Universities, multiple international publications and with either longstanding fieldwork in the cultures they reported on, in cultures exhibiting regional patters and/or peer reviewed by others who had previously worked in the area. I am assuming Vailala would at the very least agree these people are preferable to a Toyota mechanic for the purposes of conducting work on project area landowners? I could write a book on the complexities of SMLI in a development cauldron, the way landowners strategise and play with social structural principles in these situations. More constructively, however, the point I would prefer here to make is (a) the decisions a Minister makes about 'beneficiaries' is not and does not have to be solely reliant on the SMLI - other matters and submissions may come into play; (b) the weak link in the process is that there is no compulsion on the Government to liaise with the SMLI authors to seek clarification and interpretation when forming views on beneficiaries. In other words, if the SMLI was 'workshopped' between the parties in the endeavour of identifying beneficiaries, better value would emerge from the considerable resources es spent producing the SMLIs. Lastly, it would be more helpful if Vailala would, for example, provide just 1 example from the 500+ identifications made in the project SMLIs where they "got it wrong" or "drifted into absurdity"!

Thanks for letting people know what is happening inside haus mahn.

Great to see this so deserved and overdue recognition of Jemima's tireless, rigorous and inspiring work in, about and for the Pacific. Thanks Kevin for writing it, and to all who played a role in highlighting Jemima's quiet, relentless, generous work. With Pacific journalism now under so many pressures, champions like her, with such depth of knowledge and contacts, are critical.

Thanks Robin. I am worried that too few aid and development NGOs are doing these types of caculations. For what its worth, I think you are being too conservative - I think the fall in ODA will be larger than what you estimate as more governments follow the US and UK lead. What is to be done? One of the responses must be for NGOs to pursue market-based sources of capital like impact investing and carbon markets much more vigorously. Of course, traditional philanthropy still has a critical role to play – in humanitarian settings, for example, the role of market-based mechanisms is going to be very limited. We also need philanthropy and development finance to support structures that crowd in private sector capital at the scale we need. Adopting market-based mechanisms at scale is going to require some fundamentally different capability than currently exists in most NGOs. These mechanisms also have the potential to be more sustainable and impactful in the long-term than traditional aid. NGOs now have a very small window to find this capability and make the transition that is required by their radically changed strategic context.

Very Informative piece James . Thankyou!

In addition to China in the Global South we have Turkey to its neighbours, the Central Asian republics, and former Ottoman Empire states; the GCC states not least being Saudi to the Muslim world, and India to its neighbours and further afield. All of which adds up. Deducting refugee and other seemingly unaid like costs from the DAC contributions would also help balance the ledger. On China’s costs they tend to undervalue their own staff costs and in kind arrangements (see Chinas aid principles), while western donors overvalue them via expensive consultants.

I like that you have highlighted that AROB's case is not similar to ENB or any other provinces wanting special autonomy.

Congratulations, Jemima, on your hugely deserved recognition. In awe of your knowledge, work and achievements in the Pacific and beyond, over a great many years.