Devpolicy Talks

The Australasian AID Conference (AAC), held annually in partnership with The Asia Foundation, has become an integral part of the Australian and regional aid calendar. We are pleased to announce ACC2025 will be held from Wednesday 3 to Friday 5 December at the Australian National University in Canberra. The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers from across Australia, the Pacific, A...

Robin Davies speaks with Dr Agnes Kalibata, who has led the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa for the past decade and previously served as Rwanda's Minister of Agriculture, in which role she helped achieve remarkable reductions in poverty and malnutrition.   In this discussion, Kalibata explains AGRA's evolution as a bridge between research organisations, funders and rural communities. She...

Robin Davies speaks with Sir Masood Ahmed, the distinguished international economist whose career spans over 35 years at the forefront of international development.  Up to July 2024, Ahmed served as President of the US-based Center for Global Development for seven years, following influential roles at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the UK's Department for International Develop...

Gavi is a unique global health partnership that has revolutionised access to vaccines in lower-income countries since 2000. Working with governments, UN agencies, private sector partners and civil society, Gavi has helped immunise more than one billion children, averted 18 million deaths and generating over US$200 billion in economic benefits. The organisation is known for its efficiency, keeping...

It’s the eve of COP29, the global climate change conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. In this episode, with thanks to the Australian Museum, we rebroadcast the 2024 Talbot Oration, delivered by Cynthia Houniuhi. You'll hear how a small group of committed Pacific law students transformed their classroom project into a global movement for climate justice, demonstrating the power of determined advocacy to...

In this episode, Robin Davies speaks with Dr Aly Abousabaa, the Director General of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). This is the final in a three-part series on the CGIAR network of agricultural research centres. You can hear Robin’s interview with the Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, Dr Esmahane Elouafi, in episode 320, and his interview with Dr B...

In this episode, Robin Davies speaks with Dr Bram Govaerts, the Director General of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). This is the second in a three-part series on the CGIAR network of agricultural research centres. You can hear Robin’s interview with the Executive Managing Director of CGIAR, Dr Esmahane Elouafi, in episode 320, and his interview with Dr Aly Abousabaa,...

In this episode, Robin Davies speaks with Dr Ismahane Elouafi, the Executive Managing Director of CGIAR. CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) is a global partnership that unites international organisations engaged in research about food security. CGIAR's mission is to deliver science and innovation that advance the transformation of food, land, and water...

In this episode, Robin Davies speaks with Dr Fiona Hukula, the Gender Specialist at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Dr Hukula is a social anthropologist with a Doctorate from the University of St Andrews. Over more than 20 years, she has dedicated her career to policy and social research, focusing on gender-based violence, urban issues, and socio-legal studies in the Pacific region. Prior t...

In this episode, Robin Davies speaks with the distinguished Australian journalist and researcher Nic Maclellan. Over the years, Nic has extensively covered the political and social dynamics of New Caledonia, providing unique insights into its complex relationship with France and the ongoing independence movement. New Caledonia is going through a period of substantial unrest and tension, largely dr...

Robin Davies speaks with Daisy Plana, CEO of Femili PNG, together with in-house lawyer Delwyn Dau and caseworker Elly Toimbo, on the occasion of the organisation’s tenth anniversary. Femili PNG is a pioneering organisation dedicated to supporting survivors of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea through its case management centres in Lae, Port Moresby, and Goroka, as well as a safe house...

Robin Davies speaks with Dr Ruth Goodwin-Groen, an Australian financial inclusion specialist who recently stepped down from her position as founding Managing Director of the Better than Cash Alliance, a position in which she served for over a decade. Ruth has devoted much of her working life to furthering the idea that digital payment systems, well managed, can be swifter, safer, more transparent...

Development Policy Centre Deputy Director Ryan Edwards and Dung Doan, an Economist in the World Bank's Social Protection and Jobs team, discuss the Pacific Labour Mobility Survey, which was conducted between 2020 and 2023. Edwards and Doan explain how the joint research project between the Australian National University and the World Bank was a comprehensive study of Pacific migrants working in Au...

Helder Lopes, Governor of Timor-Leste’s Central Bank, spoke with Robin Davies when he visited Australia in May 2024 under the Special Visits Program of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Central Bank of Timor-Leste is a young institution, established in 2011. It combines some of the responsibilities of our own reserve bank with those of the Australian Securities and Investments Commi...

Dr Christos Christou, International President of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), spoke with Robin Davies when he visited Canberra to meet senior government figures and speak at both the National Press Club and the Development Policy Centre.  Christos was appointed to his current role in mid-2019. He has been with MSF in many capacities since 2002, including as director of the organisation’s Greek...

On 14 May 2024, the Australian government delivered its first budget since the release of the 2023 international development policy and DFAT’s review of development finance.  Professor Stephen Howes and Dr Cameron Hill expand on Devpol's 2024 budget breakfast to give an update on recent developments in aid volume and performance, plus upcoming multilateral replenishments. You can find Devpol's ful...

Alvaro Lario, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development , together with his colleague Ron Hartman, spoke with Robin Davies when they visited Australia in March 2024 to encourage the Australian Government to rejoin the Fund.  Lario explains IFAD’s distinctive role in supporting small-scale farming to reduce rural poverty and boost economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region. ...

Helen Clark sat down with Robin Davies on her March 2024 visit to the Australian National University to talk about whether governments and global institutions are ready to change the way they respond to pandemics. Clark has had a long career in public service as New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Co-Chair of the Independent Panel on Pandemic...

The Memorandum of Understanding podcast documentary series was formerly separate from Devpolicy Talks. Its back catalogue has now been merged into Devpolicy Talks Season 10. How does the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS) challenge the conception of what aid is, who works on it, and who benefits from it? In the first part of the PLS mini-series, we profiled the hard yakka that is the daily grind inside W...

On the eve of the 2021–22 Federal Budget, Stephen Howes set out three tests for Australia’s aid budget: Will there be any further increases in aid next year? Will the government sustain any aid increases beyond this year and next? Will the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provide an estimate of this year’s and next year’s Official Development Assistance (ODA)? In this ninth edition of Devpo...

The Memorandum of Understanding podcast documentary series was formerly separate from Devpolicy Talks. Its back catalogue has now been merged into Devpolicy Talks Season 10. Foreign aid has traditionally occurred “over there”, so what happens when international development is delivered within our borders?  This episode we take to the road and head to Warrnambool, a large country town in Victoria’s...

The Memorandum of Understanding podcast documentary series was formerly separate from Devpolicy Talks. Its back catalogue has now been merged into Devpolicy Talks Season 10. The forest is a resource traditionally deemed more valuable dead, chopped down or transported away in trucks and boats. For decades, development donors and NGOs have appealed to the moral high ground, attempting to persuade th...

The Memorandum of Understanding podcast documentary series was formerly separate from Devpolicy Talks. Its back catalogue has now been merged into Devpolicy Talks Season 10. The international aid set-up struggles to know how to work in countries that do not exist. Sometimes resources are poured into these places, and sometimes they are ignored entirely. But is splendid isolation from aid such a ba...

The Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC) is a major Australian government foreign aid initiative that commenced in 2008, that has spent over $350 million, and that has turned out over 15,000 graduates with Australian qualifications. In a recent  Devpolicy Discussion Paper , Richard Curtain and Stephen Howes analyse graduate tracer surveys and show that employment outcomes for APTC graduate...

The Memorandum of Understanding podcast documentary series was formerly separate from Devpolicy Talks. Its back catalogue has now been merged into Devpolicy Talks Season 10. Across the Pacific, communities are labelled as vulnerable because of the threats posed by climate change. And what do international development programs believe is needed to address this vulnerability? Resilience.  This is a...