Devpolicy Talks

This panel at the 2018 Australasian Aid Conference discussed the theory and practice of adaptive programming and how we can find ways to implement flexible programming within the context of an increasingly results-driven development agenda. Panellists drew on their experiences to speak to the importance of an adaptive approach to programming, and the implications and challenges of this, from the p...

The role of non-state actors in Asian-led development cooperation has been little discussed. Many assume South-South cooperation is government-to-government and focused on infrastructure. However, Asian providers have vibrant civil societies that are expanding their sphere of influence and practice into development cooperation. This session at the 2018 Australasian Aid Conference discussed the rol...

Taxation is central to the social contract between citizens and the state. Yet little research has explored the relationship in developing countries between individual attitudes towards the social contract and perceptions of tax fairness and efficacy. This recording of a seminar draws on experimental research with informal sector workers in Mexico and a unique survey on taxation and social protect...

Dr Jeni Klugman, Managing Director, Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security, Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Women in Public Policy Program, Harvard University; Hon Dr Sharman Stone, Australian Global Ambassador for Women and Girls; Dr Anu Mundkur, ACFID Secondee to the Australian Civil-Military Centre. Countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full...

The Social Observatory (SO) is a unit in the World Bank’s Development Research Group. It has worked for seven years with a $5 billion portfolio of community-based livelihoods projects in India. This work combines rigorous impact evaluations with ethnography, process evaluations, and the development of new citizen-led data systems to transform how such projects learn and adapt. This talk reports on...

Are our current approaches to development cooperation fit for purpose to address contemporary challenges? How should development practice evolve to reflect 21st century priorities and knowledge? And how can it bridge the traditional donor-recipient divide? Can aid donors and recipients meaningfully engage with the private sector, private philanthropy, and other new sources of financing? In the 201...

The United States and China have followed nearly parallel paths as providers of foreign aid over the past seven decades. Although both countries’ aid programs were ostensibly aimed at development, both also leveraged their aid programs to further their own national interests, using very different strategies. The United States has largely provided foreign aid with the aim of stabilising the world o...

In this podcast of a seminar, Dr Eric Kwa discusses the agenda and approach being taken by PNG’s new government in relation to strengthening government systems and processes. Among other topics, Dr Kwa discusses the design of the proposed PNG Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Dr Kwa is the Secretary/CEO for the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Constitutional and Law Reform Commission and one...

The Governance for Growth (GfG) program in Vanuatu has been running for ten years, and is about to move into its third phase. Considered to be quite innovative when it was first implemented, the program has supported some significant economic policy and public finance reforms. It has also survived changes to the institutional arrangements for the delivery of Australian aid, and significant shifts...

Robin Davies interviews Gillian Mellsop on her career with UNICEF for the Aid Profiles series. Read the full profile at devpolicy.org/aidprofiles. 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 o...

Sachini Muller interviews Muhannad Hadi, WFP Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, discussing humanitarian crises in the region and what we can do about them. 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...

In this podcast, you'll hear a panel discussion on the 2017 Papua New Guinea National Elections. The elections, held in June and July, copped both criticism and praise — but mostly criticism. Ballot box mysteries, corruption allegations, electoral roll issues, unpaid striking polling workers and localised violence dominated news headlines. Despite all this, and despite the many legal challenges to...

Speakers: Nelson Nema, School of Business and Public Policy, University of PNG; Marcel Schröder, School of Business and Public Policy, University of PNG; Rohan Fox, Research Officer, Development Policy Centre. The colourful banners and huge campaign rallies of the 2017 Papua New Guinea National Elections held in June and July may have put policy on the backburner for some as they were swept up in...

Aid paradoxes in Afghanistan: building and undermining the state. The relationship between aid and state building is highly complex and the effects of aid on weak states depend on donors’ interests, aid modalities and the recipient’s pre-existing institutional and socio-political conditions. This book argues that, in the case of Afghanistan, the country inherited conditions that were not favourabl...

Corruption is a pernicious societal disease that has devastating consequences that can cripple a nation. Although corruption has become a global challenge, its scale and prevalence in any country depend on how it is being addressed. There are countries that are perceived to be less corrupt as graded by Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index, such as Finland, Denmark and Ne...

International peace and statebuilding interventions have become ubiquitous since the 1990s. Their frequent failures, however, have prompted some researchers and practitioners to move beyond focusing on interveners’ ideas and approaches to analysing how their interactions with recipients shape outcomes. The recently published book by Shahar Hameiri, Caroline Hughes and Fabio Scarpello, Internationa...

The Australian aid program faces a fundamental dilemma: how, in the absence of deep popular support, should it generate the political legitimacy required to safeguard its budget and administering institutions? A new book by Jack Corbett entitled 'Australia’s Foreign Aid Dilemma: Humanitarian Aspirations Confront Democratic Legitimacy', tells the story of the actors who have grappled with this ques...

Speaker: Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Investing in equitable, quality education systems has a powerful positive impact on economies and societies, and in turn drives progress across the range of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Educating and empowering girls and women in particular helps to strengthen economic prosperity, and improves stabil...

Speakers: Staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Cardno, and The Australian National University. This forum, which was jointly organised by the Development Policy Centre and the Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) and held on 11 August 2017, was the latest in a series on the evaluation of Australian aid. It focused on two recent evaluations. The second evaluation, discussed...

Speakers: Staff from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Cardno, and The Australian National University. This forum, which was jointly organised by the Development Policy Centre and the Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) and held on 11 August 2017, was the latest in a series on the evaluation of Australian aid. It focused on two recent evaluations. The first part, discussed in this...

Over the last decade, international development policies, most notably in the UK, have advanced ‘political settlements’ as a framing concept to guide statebuilding practice in fragile and conflict-affected states. Such policies have encouraged efforts towards achieving an inclusive, or inclusive enough, political settlement as a bulwark against instability. The empirical research underpinning the...

In global health circles, Dr Eric Goosby’s reputation precedes him. A physician by training, he has been a leader in the development and implementation of HIV/AIDS policy for 30 years and is perhaps best known for his role as the US Global AIDS Coordinator (2009-2013). In 2015, Dr Goosby accepted an appointment as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Tuberculosis (TB), and it was in this ca...

In 1938 three Australian patrol officers – Jim Taylor, John Black and Pat Walsh – set off on an epic journey into the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Their purpose: to make contact with highland tribes who until then, had no contact with the outside world, and to explain to them that their lives were about to undergo incredible change. Fifty years later, Jim’s daughter Meg retraced her father’s ste...

PNG was severely impacted by the 2015-16 El Niño drought and, at some very high altitude locations, a series of destructive frosts. The drought and frosts impacted many rural villagers between mid-2015 and late 2016, with some people still severely impacted in early 2017. Impacts included: widespread shortages of drinking water; shortages of subsistence food in many places; negative effect on vill...

Tropical forests are an undervalued asset in meeting the greatest global challenges of our time—averting climate change and promoting sustainable development. Despite their importance, tropical forests and their ecosystems are being destroyed at a high and even increasing rate in most forest-rich countries. The good news is that the science, economics, and politics are aligned to support a major i...