Development Policy Centre Podcast

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Astrid Boulekone, General Manager of the Vanuatu Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Blog available here: http://devpolicy.org/pacific-conversations-private-sector-development-in-vanuatu-with-astrid-boulekone-20140306/

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed is the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, the world's largest NGO.

Frances Seymour is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development based in Washington, DC, and a Senior Advisor to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. In her keynote address, she argued that, while reducing forest loss will depend on domestic political will and profound institutional and governance changes in forest countries, there are also options available to rich country governments, corporations, and citizens to accelerate progressive reform. The actions she outlined and recommended are urgent, affordable, and politically feasible, and constitute a bridge to a future global climate agreement that includes forests.

This plenary session provided updates and new analysis of aid from three emerging superpowers – China, India and Brazil – from three leading experts. Dr. Rani Mullen is Director, Indian Development Cooperation Research and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Dr. Tongquan Sun is an Associate Professor at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) where he researches Chinese and international development assistance. Dr Sean Burges is a Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Politics and International Relations at the ANU. His research interests cover the area of non-traditional aid, with a particular focus on Brazil. Powerpoint slides are available here: https://devpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/australasian-aid-and-international-development-policy-workshop/abstracts-presentations-and-papers

Roger Ridell is an associate at Oxford Policy Management and is a development and aid specialist with some 40 years’ experience. His 2008 book Does Foreign Aid Really Work? was the first attempt in more than 20 years to survey the evidence around whether aid actually works. Roger’s keynote address provided an updated assessment on aid’s impact, discussed what impact we ought to expect aid to have and outlined ways in which its impact could be improved. A summary blog of his speech, which includes links to a full transcript and related discussion paper, is available here: http://devpolicy.org/does-foreign-aid-really-work-an-updated-answer-20140214/

Julie Bishop, Minister for Foreign Affairs, delivered the opening address at the 2014 Australasian Aid and Development Policy Workshop. A transcript of her speech is available here: http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/2014/jb_sp_140213.html

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Kolone Vaai, Principal Consultant at KVAConsult Ltd and former Financial Secretary for the Government of Samoa (1984-1990). Blog post available here: http://devpolicy.org/pacific-conversations-the-economy-of-samoa-with-kolone-vaai-20140122/

In July and August 2013 the Development Policy Centre surveyed 356 stakeholders in the Australian aid program, from the senior executives of Australia’s biggest NGOs and development contracting companies, to the officials of multilateral, partner government and Australian government agencies. The survey asked them what they thought about the Australian aid program, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they thought the future of aid was and what needed to be done to improve our aid. And now the verdict is in. This even launched the results of the 2013 Australian aid stakeholder survey. It’s a unique exercise, with a distinctive set of results. More than a baseline for future improvements, it’s a stocktake on where Australian aid has got to, and a critical input into where it needs to go. The event will tackle questions such as: Is our aid getting better or worse? How do we compare to other donors? What is our biggest strength, and what’s the biggest weakness? How important is the national interest in

As troops withdraw and aid declines, this is a critical period of transition for Afghanistan. At this forum, the speakers questioned what has been achieved to date. The event also included the Australia launch of The Asia Foundation’s Survey of the Afghan People 2013. This is the biggest public opinion poll in Afghanistan, covering all 34 provinces. Through face-to-face interviews, over 9,000 Afghan citizens revealed their opinions on security, political participation, the economy, women’s rights, and development. The forum also scrutinised the 2013 report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on Australia’s overseas development programs in Afghanistan. This critical report found that while Afghanistan ‘remains in need of substantial and continuing aid,’ to date, Australian achievements in Afghanistan may not be as substantial as initial indicators suggest. Speakers include: Mark Kryzer, Afghanistan Country Representative, The Asia Foundation Palwasha Kakar, Director of the Afg

Ashlee Betteridge sits down with Daisy Plana to discuss her new role as the Senior Social Worker and first CEO of the PNG Family and Sexual Violence Case Management Centre (CMC).The CMC is a newly registered NGO, currently in the set-up phase. Blog available here: http://devpolicy.org/moving-beyond-the-medical-for-family-and-sexual-violence-survivors-in-png-20131212/ You can read about the rationale for the CMC here: http://devpolicy.org/responding-to-family-and-sexual-violence-in-png-the-case-for-a-case-management-centre-20130711/

The Pacific region is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which carry the risk of significant economic costs. The Asian Development Bank’s report on the economics of climate change in the Pacific aims to raise the level of understanding of all sectors and stakeholders on possible impacts of climate change, with analyses that lead to regional strategies supported by national programs linked to local policies and activities. It focuses on Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu with broader regional results also included. In the report, projections of total economic damage to the Pacific due to climate change are provided in various scenarios. Economic assessment associated with climate information is undertaken to identify priority sectors, estimate funding needs, and prepare for economy-wide climate change impacts. In this public seminar, Xianbin Yao, Director General of the Pacific Department of the Asian Development Bank and Cyn-Young Park, Assistant Ch

The unfolding crisis in Syria has left more than eight million people displaced from their homes. Cut off from vital services, desperately in need of water, food and health care, today an entire generation of Syrians are teetering on the brink. How does the international community respond to such a crisis? Luciano Calestini, currently coordinating UNICEF’s humanitarian response in Lebanon where more than 800,000 refugees are struggling to survive, provided a unique insight into the heart of one of the largest humanitarian crises the modern world has known. Luciano Calestini was born in Sydney, Australia to a New Zealand mother and an Italian father. He spent his childhood equally between those three countries, completing his education in Australia before accepting a short-term mission to southern Sudan in the late 1990s to join the famine response. Luciano has also lived and worked in East Timor (in the aftermath of the 1999 referendum), in Kosovo (following the 1999 war), in western Afghanistan (after the No

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Odo Tevi, who was Governor of the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu for the last 15 years, to discuss the Vanuatu economy. Blog post available here: http://devpolicy.org/in-conversation-with-odo-tevi-on-the-vanuatu-economy-20131329/

The small states of the Asia and Pacific region face unique challenges in raising their growth potential and living standards relative to other small states due to their small populations, geographical isolation and dispersion, narrow export and production bases, exposure to shocks, and heavy reliance on aid. Higher fixed government costs, low access to credit by the private sector, and capacity constraints are also key challenges. The econometric analysis confirms that the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have underperformed relative to their peers over the last 20 years. Although these countries often face more limited policy tools, policies do matter and can help build resilience and raise potential growth. The Asia and Pacific small states should continue rebuilding buffers and improve the composition of public spending. Regional solutions should also continue to be pursued. Dr Patrizia Tumbarello, Unit Chief for the International Monetary Fund Pacific Island Unit presented on the IMF’s recent work on smal

After decades of poor economic performance, Africa is doing much better, with higher economic growth. Why? What role did aid play? And what are the lessons for the Pacific? Jim Adams knows both Africa and the Pacific well. In the 2014 Harold Mitchell Development Policy Lecture, he focussed on how effective economic reform emerged in Africa and related institutional and capacity issues. Drawing on this and his Pacific experience, he reviewed a number of proposals that could be taken by donors in the Pacific to accelerate economic reform and support the emergence of improved government institutions and capacity on policy making. Jim Adams retired a year ago after 37 years at the World Bank. His last assignment was as the Vice President for East Asia and the Pacific from 2007 – 2012, where he worked on and travelled extensively in the Pacific island region. He spent almost half of his career working on Africa, leading the Bank’s program as the Regional Director in Kenya in the late 1980s and as Country Director

The most serious problems that developing countries face are increasingly international in nature. Climate change, water scarcity, communicable diseases, food insecurity and the depletion of forests and fisheries—all these things call for cooperation at the regional or global levels, as well as action at the national level. Such cooperation is often mediated by international organisations and much of it is funded by aid. But global aid is shrinking in this era of austerity and international organisations face strong incentives to direct scarce resources to urgent national priorities. Moreover, international cooperation has had few wins in recent years and international organisations are increasingly facing crises of identity and relevance, with their missions, policies and governance arrangements coming under fire from many directions. What would it take for international organisations to play a more effective role in dealing with global challenges important for development? Our three panelists addressed this

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Katy Leroy, a constitutional lawyer who has lived on Nauru for seven years. Until very recently she was Parliamentary Counsel for Nauru with responsibility for drafting legislation and advising the Speaker of Parliament and parliamentary committees. A full transcript of the interview is available here: http://devpolicy.org/pacific-conversations/6.%20Transcript%20of%20interview%20with%20Katy%20Le%20Roy.docx Blog post available here: http://devpolicy.org/nauru-politics-asylum-seekers-more-20130920/

Throughout the developing world, millions of people lack access to safe water and improved sanitation, which has high social and economic costs. The World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) has been advising client governments on the effective engagement of domestic private sector in the delivery of services and the development of water and sanitation markets that cater to the poor. In this public event, Ms Jaehyang So and Bob Warner presented the findings of the WSP’s recently published report ‘Tapping the Market: Opportunities for domestic investments in water and sanitation for the poor’. The report is the first study of its kind to systematically assess the constraints of domestic firms in investing for increased supply to the poor. The study discusses the paradox of a large market dominated by small firms and concludes that enabling the domestic private sector to supply the base of the pyramid requires addressing a range of commercial, policy and institutional issues, and some rethinking about val

Oxfam's Duncan Green speaks with Devpolicy's Associate Director Robin Davies about the realities of doing development in complex systems.

How do we plan, campaign and work in development when we don’t know what is going to happen and we don’t know what solutions will work? Aid professionals know that real life has a way of ignoring our plans and procedures, but often we block out that knowledge in order to keep functioning. In this talk, Duncan Green asks what would we do differently, if we acknowledge and try to adapt to the messiness of reality. Dr Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, Honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He was previously a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University, a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development at the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), a Policy Analyst on trade and globalisation at the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Head of Research and Engagement at the Just Pensions project on socially responsible investment. He is author of From Poverty to