Devpolicy Talks

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 mo...

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/ Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre.  Read and subscribe to our daily blogs at...

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 c...

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...

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...

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%...

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...

Oxfam's Duncan Green speaks with Devpolicy's Associate Director Robin Davies about the realities of doing development in complex systems. Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre.  Read and subscribe to our daily blogs at devpolicy.org. Learn more about our research and join our public events at devpolicy.anu.edu.au. Follow us on Twitter...

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 messin...

Until recently, discussions on a new post-2015 framework to succeed the Millennium Development Goals mostly revolved around general principles or else very particular features of a possible landscape. Now, several proposals for an integrated post-2015 agenda have emerged. Most prominent among these is the illustrative framework offered by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel (HLP) of Eminen...

Decades of conflict have eroded the physical and social fabric of Afghanistan, with severe impacts on the lives of children. Kerry Boland, consultant to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), talked about her experience building formal and informal mechanisms to protect children in Afghanistan. Kerry drew on her expe...

Australia’s aid program has increased massively over the last decade, but its future is unclear, and aid policy has become controversial. The Labor Government has repeatedly delayed its target to lift aid 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI), and just this month slashed $900 million from the forward estimates for aid. The Coalition has not put any date to achievement of 0.5. There are also...

Since the mid-1990s, economic growth rates in large and populous middle-income countries have substantially outpaced those in OECD countries. This has reshaped the global economy and favoured convergence in global income per capita. The process of ‘shifting wealth’ was led by China and India, but other countries are also contributing to it, including Brazil and South Africa. In spite of the persis...

Aid agencies increasingly stress the importance of value for money, but what does this mean, and might a managerial focus on results actually undermine aid effectiveness, or simply result in aid confusion? This public forum addressed these questions from a variety of perspectives. Speakers at the forum were: Dr Cathy Shutt, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex and convenor...

Over the past decade, the world has witnessed a digital revolution and its impacts have not been limited to those living in wealthy countries. By 2014, it is predicted there will be more active mobile phones on the planet than people. Increasingly, those in the aid sector are seeing the potential for these media and communication technologies to be harnessed for development. But can these tools tr...

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Tara Chetty program director at the FIji Women's Rights Movements. A full transcript of the interview is available here: http://devpolicy.org/pacific-conversations/5.%20Transcript%20of%20interview%20with%20Tara%20Chetty.docx Blog post available here: http://devpolicy.org/tara-chetty-fiji-democracy-and-womens-rights-20130806/ Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Aus...

Tess Newton Cain sits down with Francis Herman, Program Manager of the regional Pacific Media Assistance program (PACMAS) and a highly experienced media professional to give his assessment of the media landscape of the Pacific region. A full transcript of the interview is available here: http://devpolicy.org/pacific-conversations/4.%20Transcript%20of%20interview%20with%20Francis%20Herman%20.docx B...

The end of official development assistance (ODA) has been confidently predicted for decades. But a funny thing happened at the end of the 90s. A set of development targets identified by the OECD mutated into the Millennium Development Goals and political momentum returned to the aid effort. Annual ODA rose by two-thirds in the decade leading up to 2010. But the knives are out again in finance depa...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provided a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provided a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provided a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provided a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provided a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provides a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...

The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provides a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by: the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public...