Devpolicy Talks

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 role Asian NGOs have played in lobbying and influencing government policy in Asia on South-South and development cooperation, their activities, and impacts in partner countries. It also examined how Asian civil society is contributing to the governance and accountability of development cooperation nationally and internationally. The panel featured civil society representatives from Japan, Korea, China and India.

Panellists:
Anthea Mulakala, The Asia Foundation (Chair)
Jin-kyung Kim, Korean International Cooperation Agency
Supriya Roychoudhury, Independent Analyst: Indian development cooperation
Takeshi Komino, Church World Service Japan
Haoming Huang, China Association for Non-Profit Organisations

The 2018 Australasian Aid Conference was held at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, on 13-14 February, and was organised by the Development Policy Centre in partnership with The Asia Foundation.

https://crawford.anu.edu.au/devpolicy/events

Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre.

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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 protection in Myanmar to help advance the debate.

Focusing on individual perceptions, they show that in contexts of high informality and weak state capacity, reciprocity and individual preferences for redistribution shape tax morale. They point to the centrality of fairness, finding that tax morale is lower when individuals have stepped outside of the social contract and the welfare state through reliance on private insurance or informal reciprocity mechanisms. Furthermore, they present evidence that individuals are less willing to pay taxes when they doubt the redistributive capacity of the state or know the rich will ultimately benefit.

David Doyle is an Associate Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of the Latin American Centre and a Fellow of St Hugh’s College. He is the co-convener of the European Consortium for Policitcal Research Standing Group on Latin American Politics and an Associate Editor of the journal Oxford Development Studies.

Gerard McCarthy is a doctoral fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change at The Australian National University and Associate Director of ANU Myanmar Research Centre. He has advised and consulted for a range of agencies including International Growth Centre Myanmar, United States Institute of Peace and the Carter Centre.

Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University's Development Policy Centre.

Read and subscribe to our daily blogs at devpolicy.org.

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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.

The index incorporates three basic dimensions of wellbeing—inclusion (economic, social, political); justice (formal laws and informal discrimination); and security (at the family, community, and societal levels)—and captures and quantifies them through 11 indicators. It ranks 153 countries—covering more than 98 per cent of the world’s population—along these three dimensions in a way that focuses attention on key achievements and major shortcomings.

At the Australian launch of the index, Lead Author Jeni Klugman shared details on the main findings, and the utility of the index for groups such as policymakers, civil society and the private sector. She was joined by Australia’s Global Ambassador for Women and Girls, the Hon Dr Sharman Stone, and Dr Anu Mundkur, Australian Council for International Development’s representative on the steering group of the Australian Civil Society Coalition on Women, Peace and Security, to discuss the implications of the index more broadly. The event was followed by a networking reception.

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.

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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 some aspects of this work, showing how randomised control trials (RCTs) and ethnographies can be meaningfully combined, and demonstrating new tools to deepen collective action.

For more see: http://socialobservatory.worldbank.org/about

Vijayendra Rao is a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. His research has spanned subjects that include gender inequality, mixed-methods, culture, decentralisation, community development, and deliberative democracy. He obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Chicago, Michigan, and Williams College before joining the World Bank.

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.

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You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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 2017 Mitchell Oration, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala draws on more than 30 years of development and financial expertise to reflect on the need for a new way forward.

A development economist and former Finance Minister of Nigeria, Dr Okonjo-Iweala is uniquely placed to provide perspectives on these crucial questions. She has served as Board Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, since January 2016. She has twice served as Nigeria’s Finance Minister, most recently between 2011 and 2015 – a role that encompassed the expanded portfolio of Coordinating Minister for the Economy. In 2006 she served as Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, and has also held several key positions at the World Bank, including as Managing Director.

The Mitchell Oration series, of which this is the fifth, has been created to provide a forum at which the most pressing development issues can be addressed by the best minds and most influential practitioners of our time. This podcast of Dr Okonjo-Iweala's lecture is presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, with generous support from the Harold Mitchell Foundation.

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 Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X for updates on blog posts, publications and events.

You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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 order, favouring a patron-client relationship with recipient countries and using aid to promote economic and political liberalisation. China, on the other hand, has used its foreign aid program primarily to strengthen its position as a leader of the Global South, favouring a hands-off political approach and emphasising reciprocity and solidarity with aid recipients.

In this recorded podcast of a Devpolicy seminar, Professor Frank Bongiorno will launch and Dr Patrick Kilby will discuss his recent monograph for the East West Center on US and Chinese aid. In times of growing authoritarianism, as the Trump administration considers cutting foreign aid by one third, he argues that the US should carefully consider whether it will cede the ‘aid race’ to its political competitor.

Dr Patrick Kilby is a political scientist with the School of Archaeology and Anthropology in the College of Arts and Social Sciences, The Australian National University (ANU), and convener of the Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development. He was an East West Center Visiting Fellow in Washington in 2017, and a Fulbright Senior Scholar in 2018.

Professor Frank Bongiorno is a professor at the School of History, College of Arts and Social Sciences, ANU. He has held lecturing positions at King’s College London (2007-11), the University of New England (2000-07) and Griffith University (1996), and also taught previously at ANU (1994).

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 Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X for updates on blog posts, publications and events.

You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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 of the country’s pre-eminent legal thinkers. A lawyer by profession with many years of experience in practice and research, Dr Kwa holds a PhD in Environmental Law from Auckland University, New Zealand. He also holds a Master of Laws with Honours (LLM (Hon)) from the University of Wollongong and a Law Degree with Honours (LLB (Hon)) from the University of Papua New Guinea. He was formerly an Associate Professor of Law and Dean of the University of Papua New Guinea Law School.

This event was presented as part of the Development Policy Centre’s PNG Project, which receives funding from the Australian Aid Program through the Pacific Governance and Leadership Precinct.

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.

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You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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 in the political landscape in Vanuatu.

The program was recently the subject of two in-depth reviews, one led by the Overseas Development Institute, and the other by a team of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) economists. These reviews provide an opportunity to consider the successes and failures of GfG, what elements of the model were most useful in supporting success, and whether the lessons of the last ten years have implications for other small island developing states.

This podcast features a recording of a panel discussion covering these issues. The panel featured the following participants:

Pablo Kang, Assistant Secretary, Melanesia Branch, DFAT, and former Head of Mission in Vanuatu

Matthew Harding, Director, Pacific Economic Growth Section, DFAT, and

Jonathan Gouy, Director, Development Economics Unit, DFAT and leader of the economic review (via a presentation given by Bob Warner)

Clinton Pobke, Manager and Jennifer Kalpokas Doan, Senior Program

Bob Warner, Visiting Fellow, Development Policy Centre, and member of the

This event is presented by the Development Policy Centre, a consortium partner of the Pacific Research Program (PRP). PRP is supported by the Australian aid program.

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 Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X for updates on blog posts, publications and events.

You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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.

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You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].

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 join our public events at devpolicy.anu.edu.au.

Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X for updates on blog posts, publications and events.

You can send feedback, and ideas for episodes too, to [email protected].