Development Policy Centre Podcast

Speakers: James Brumby, The World Bank; Luis Felipe Lopez Calva, The World Bank; Natasha Smith, DFAT; Dr Helen Szoke, Oxfam Australia; and Professor Veronica Taylor, ANU. The Oceania launch of the World Development Report 2017, including a presentation of the report and a panel discussion, was held on February 14 as a side event to the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference The World Development Report 2017 on Governance and the Law explores how policies for security, growth and equity can effectively achieve their goals by addressing the underlying drivers of governance. Building on the traditional concern about implementation problems resulting from limited state capacity, this report digs deeper to understand also how individuals and groups, with differing degrees of influence in the decision-making arena, bargain over the choice of policies, distribution of resources, and how to change the rules themselves to shape future interactions.

Foreign Minister The Hon Julie Bishop MP delivered the opening address at the 2017 Australasian Aid Conference on February 15, held at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. In the address, Minister Bishop announced several new initiatives and spoke of the strategic importance of the aid program.

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Chair: Stephen Howes, ANU Speakers: Robin Davies, ANU Adam Kamradt-Scott, University of Sydney Phoebe Wynn-Pope, Australian Red Cross Paul McPhun, Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia Jamie Isbister, DFAT The humanitarian aid system is in crisis. It’s a crisis of identity, financing and conduct. Agencies set up to deal with the immediate impacts of traumatic events find themselves have become de facto providers of long-term development assistance to displaced communities. Agencies set up to develop global norms and provide technical assistance to governments are facing pressure to coordinate flash responses to transboundary threats. In aggregate, funding for crisis response falls far short of needs and is ad hoc and short-term. Humanitarian actors are more than ever divided over traditional principles of humanitarian action, particularly independence and impartiality. Many of these problems have been thrown into sharp relief by the civil conflict in Syria and it

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Chair: Joel Negin What does Australian aid need more of, or less of? What are its ailments and what shape its cures? This panel presents the best, the most original, the most transformational, the most innovative ideas to get more bang from the 4 billion dollar buck that is the Australian aid program. Following the 3-Minute-Thesis format, rival advocates will battle it out for your vote. For something quick and different, listen to 3MAP: the Three-Minute Aid Pitch. Order of presentations: Chris Ostendorf – Leading on social investment in development Therese Faulkner – Establishing an Australian technical cooperation organization Ashlee Betteridge – Communicating aid better Dennis Altman – Integrating rights into foreign policy Bob McMullan – Establishing an Australian development finance institution for the Pacific Chris Roche – Building a movement of human rights and planetary defenders Matt Dornan – Expanding Pacific labour

Plenary session, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference Speakers: Guo Peiyuan, General Manager, SynTao; Jeon Hyunjin, Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility Team, LG Electronics HQ; Simon Cramp, Director of Private Sector Development, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Prabodh Saxena, Principal Secretary, Government of Himachal Pradesh. Chaired by Anthea Mulakala of The Asia Foundation. Involving the private sector in development cooperation is a priority today not only for many Western countries, but also for many Asian ones. Several Asian providers of development cooperation have vibrant private sectors who are expanding their sphere of influence and practice into development cooperation. Asian companies are often the implementers of infrastructure projects, whether through lines of credit or tied aid. At the other end of the spectrum many Asian multinationals are involved in corporate social responsibility and shared value initiatives in the region. This panel will explore how collaborative approaches wi

Keynote address, 2017 Australasian Aid Conference, ANU Speaker: Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Development Specialist, World Bank and Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard University Despite what today’s headlines might convey, life for most people in most developing countries has never been better. This should be rightly celebrated, but improving basic levels of human welfare from a low base was the relatively ‘easy’ part. To consolidate and expand these achievements, the key development challenge remains building the state’s capability to implement incrementally more complex and contentious tasks, at scale (e.g., justice, regulation, taxation, land administration) and those tasks inherently requiring extended forms of human interaction (classroom teaching, curative care). These are fundamentally different types of challenges, however, ones for which our prevailing aid architecture was not designed and on which achievements to date are mostly flat or declining: if current trends continue, only about 10% of those

Robin Davies interviews Publish What You Fund’s London-based CEO, Rupert Simons and Elise Dufief, the organisation’s Research and Monitoring Manager, who is in the process of reviewing the methodology used for the Aid Transparency Index, to discuss the current issues in aid transparency.

The independent Tax Review Committee (TRC) established by the Government of PNG recently completed a comprehensive review of the country’s tax system involving extensive and transparent stakeholder consultation over the course of two years. This culminated in two volumes of reports (inclusive of significant economic and tax reform recommendations) which were formally presented to the PNG Government in November, 2015. The final report highlighted the high risks of PNG’s overdependence on the extractive sector and its vulnerability to the cyclical vagaries of global commodities pricing and recommended a ‘paradigm shift’ in the governance, management and stimulation of sustainable economic development. PNG’s vulnerability has become pronounced in recent months with the sudden drop in the oil price resulting in fiscal distress, lack of foreign exchange, and economic slowdown. PNG is at a precarious crossroads and tax reform provides an opportunity for a strategic transformation. The report provides some realistic

For generations of young Australians with a passion for social justice, volunteering in developing or indigenous communities has been a rite of passage. Bill Armstrong has been deeply involved in this movement since the 1960s, working with organisations such as the Overseas Service Bureau (now Australian Volunteers International), and Indigenous Community Volunteers. Robin Davies discussed his work in an interview for our Aid Profiles series. View the story here: http://devpolicy.org/aidprofiles/2016/12/12/bill-armstrong-volunteering-with-attitude/

It is well known that gender-based and sexual violence are major problems facing Papua New Guinea. What is less widely recognized are the grassroots efforts underway to combat these problems, and the individuals leading those efforts. Everlyne Sap is one of those individuals. She is a gender advocate and chairperson of the Family and Sexual Violence Steering Committee of the Restorative Justice Initiative Association (RJIA) at Porgera in Enga Province, PNG. Camilla Burkot interviewed Everlyne during the State of the Pacific 2016 conference, convened by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program at The Australian National University.

In this podcast, part of a series of talks from the recent PNG Update, you will hear a collection of speeches showcasing the ANU-UPNG Partnership. In the first part, Nelson Nema, Professor Stephen Howes, Rohan Fox and Dr Manoj Pandey provide an update on PNG’s current economic performance. Following this are Peter Kanaparo and Dr Grant Walton, with a discussion on the unintended consequences of the PNG Tuition Fee Free policy (TFF). You can find a link to both presentations at the Devpolicy website (devpolicy.anu.edu.au) under the 2016 PNG Update tab.

In this podcast, part of a series of speeches from the recent PNG Update, you will hear Mr. Bruce Davis, Australian High Commissioner to PNG; reflect on the diversity and strategic importance of the AUS – PNG relationship. Charles Abel, Honorable Minister for National Planning at the PNG Government, also speaks. Abel discusses the importance of PNG’s transition to a sustainable economy, and arguing that the responsible use of renewable resources is essential if PNG is to sustain growth beyond the resource boom. You can find a link to both speeches at the Devpolicy website (devpolicy.anu.edu.au) under the 2016 PNG Update tab.

During times of disaster, people naturally want to help. Unfortunately, they sometimes choose to do so in ways that do more harm and create more chaos: like emptying their medicine cabinets of expired goods and shipping them off overseas. Pharmacist Phillip Passmore has helped swamped local health systems deal with dodgy or unneeded drugs in post-tsunami Aceh and much, much more during his fascinating career. Read our Aid Profile on Phillip here: http://devpolicy.org/aidprofiles/2016/11/07/phillip-passmore-not-your-ordinary-pharmacist/

During times of disaster, people naturally want to help. Unfortunately, they sometimes choose to do so in ways that do more harm and create more chaos: like emptying their medicine cabinets of expired goods and shipping them off overseas. Pharmacist Phillip Passmore has helped swamped local health systems deal with dodgy or unneeded drugs in post-tsunami Aceh and much, much more during his fascinating career. Read our Aid Profile on Phillip here: http://devpolicy.org/aidprofiles/2016/11/07/phillip-passmore-not-your-ordinary-pharmacist/

Disaster risk reduction, and its interface with climate risk management and adaptation, is a topic of increasing interest in international development, particularly for those working in the Pacific. Robert Glasser is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction in the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, otherwise known as UNISDR. Camilla Burkot spoke with Robert about developments in disaster risk reduction globally and in the Pacific, links between disaster and climate risk, and the role that UNISDR plays.

Speaker: Mr Kyle Peters, Interim Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President, Operations, The World Bank. The global community is facing extraordinary challenges which call for a new approach to ensuring the poorest and most vulnerable are protected. At the same time, the international community has significantly raised and accelerated its ambitions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, fight climate change, and better manage collective risks. As part of his inaugural visit to Australia in November 2016, World Bank Interim Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President, Operations, Kyle Peters shared insights on current global development issues, and the future direction the World Bank is taking to address them.

In a keynote address at the 2016 PNG Update (held at the University of Papua New Guinea, November 3-4), Professor Betty Lovai, Dean of the UPNG School of Humanities and Social Science, discussed the challenges and barriers facing Papua New Guinean women leaders. You can find a transcript of Prof Lovai's presentation, and more information about the conference, here: https://devpolicy.crawford.anu.edu.au/png-and-pacific-updates/png-update

Dr Muhammad Musa is the Executive Director of BRAC, the Bangladesh-based international NGO that has grown to become the world’s largest NGO (by number of employees). During a recent trip to Australia sponsored by DFAT, Dr Musa met with Camilla Burkot to share some insights from BRAC’s experience of pursuing financial self-sustainability, developing and scaling-up evidence-based programs, and the changing nature of NGO partnerships.

Gender inequality and violence against women are major development challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region. In a wide-ranging conversation hosted by UN Women National Committee Australia and the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA) in Canberra on 11 October 2016, Anna-Karin Jatfors (Deputy Director, UN Women Asia and the Pacific) and Melissa Alvarado (Ending Violence Against Women Program Coordinator, UN Women Asia and the Pacific) discussed some of their organisation’s work. The conversation was facilitated by Janelle Weissman (Executive Director, UN Women National Committee Australia).

To help mark the Asian Development Bank’s half-century, a panel of eminent speakers shared their insights on Asia-Pacific development over the past 50 years and the relevance of the institution in current times. Speakers: Professor Ron Duncan, ANU; Mr Stephen Groff, Vice President, Asian Development Bank; Professor Hal Hill, ANU; Ms Annmaree O’Keeffe AM, Lowy Institute and Dr Matthew Dornan (chair), Deputy Director, Development Policy Centre, ANU.