One third of the people in the region are living below the poverty line. Poverty is a growing problem for many countries in the Pacific, with approximately 2.7 million people, not having the income or access to subsistence production to meet their basic human needs. Matthew Morris from the Australian National University is the Deputy Director of the Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Economics and Government at the ANU. He has published a paper [...] Read more »
Radio Australia: PNG’s development has never been faster
A conference in Canberra has heard that the pace of political and economic change in Papua New Guinea has never been faster. PNG is grappling with a new government let by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, along with court challenges, a mining boom and the nations elections set for 2012. Two experts on PNG are taking part in the conference today. One of them is a former economic advisor to the PNG Government, Matt Morris who’s [...] Read more »
The life you can save?
Saving lives is an important reason for giving development aid. In this excellent debate, Bill Easterly and Peter Singer discuss what people in rich countries can do to save lives. Peter argues that we have a moral responsibility to give more aid. Bill adds that we also have a moral responsibility to make sure that the NGOs and aid agencies that act on our behalf actually save lives. Read more »
Virtual economy report
A new study by the World Bank Group’s infoDev program shows that virtual online currencies and digital work now provide real income opportunities to poor and unskilled workers in developing countries. infoDev is a global technology and innovation-led development finance program of the World Bank and IFC. The new study, Knowledge Map of the Virtual Economy, finds that more than 100,000 people in countries such as China and India earn a living through online games [...] Read more »
Welcome to the social network
‘Facebook helps you connect and share with people in your life’–a understated mission for a global phenomenon, and what does it mean for the developing world? If you haven’t seen ‘The Social Network’ already, I highly recommend it. The directing is inspired, with the story told through flashbacks from two deposition hearings. The characters are compelling–Mark Zuckerberg and Edaurdo Severin create Facebook in the Fall of 2003; Sean Parker, the creator of Napster, brings Facebook [...] Read more »
The market for development experts
Unable to sleep last night, I logged onto the Aid Review website and started to browse through the 50 or so submissions. Many of them made references to technical assistance, so I ran a Google search – ‘technical assistance site:aidreview.gov.au/publications’ – and discovered a long list of results, including: Significantly reduce use of technical assistance provided by Western consultants – use local rather than external advisors and institutions. (World Vision) Reduce the proportion of aid money [...] Read more »
Kevin 7+1: Australia reaffirms MDGs
Kevin Rudd used his first press conference as Foreign Minister to emphasise Australia’s commitment to global poverty reduction and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs include seven development goals for poor countries to be achieved by 2015: halving extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, reversing the spread of deadly diseases and environmental sustainability. This set of essential development outcomes are supported by an additional [...] Read more »
Fresh ideas on Australian aid
There has been a lot of attention on the aid program in recent months – much of it well intentioned, some of it ill informed. We need a better debate and it was good to join a discussion at the Crawford School on the review of Australian aid to Papua New Guinea. Professor Stephen Howes delivered a riveting talk on the findings and recommendations of the review of the Australia-PNG Aid Cooperation Treaty. Delivering aid [...] Read more »
Links we like
Here’s a rapid round-up of what we’re been reading on the web and tweeting about (@mattpdmorris). Congratulations Kevin Rudd – Australia’s new foreign minister and long time supporter of MDGs. He has the big job of doubling Australian aid. Here’s a great set of MDG success stories from Asia and the Pacific that show how aid can work. And with the UN Summit taking place next week here’s the latest MDG data to see where countries stand. [...] Read more »
Virtual frontline for emergencies
Getting reliable and up to date information on humanitarian emergencies and conflicts is a major challenge for development agencies. Often, global crises are met by too little, too late. News of events on the ground become lost and we are left learning lessons for the future rather than tackling the causes of the crisis. The rights of those in the centre of crisis and conflicts are often pushed aside and innocent people are killed or [...] Read more »
