Devpolicy Talks

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 Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, and it manages Timor-Leste's sovereign wealth fund, the Petroleum Fund. 

Helder is only the Central Bank’s second Governor, and is six months into a six-year term. He talks about the need to put Timor-Leste’s Petroleum Fund on a sustainable footing, accelerate private sector development, harness the benefits of remittances from its citizens working in countries such as Australia, the UK and South Korea, expand the range and reach of financial services, and carefully review the pros and cons of continuing to use the US dollar as the country’s national currency. 

-------------

Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We’re part of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra.

This is episode five in our 2024 season, which is a new beginning for the podcast after a hiatus of two years. We're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the centre – Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and Indo-Pacific regional and global development.

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].

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 chapter, and has had field assignments in Zambia, South Sudan, Iraq, and Cameroon. Born and educated in Greece, he trained as a general and emergency surgeon and also holds a Masters degree in International Health from the University of Athens, where he is a faculty member.

Christos talks about the shrinking of the humanitarian space in which MSF and other humanitarian organisations operate, through restrictions on access to emergency situations, direct attacks on humanitarian workers, and the criminalisation of humanitarian efforts. He also discusses the role of MSF in protracted crises, the organisation’s ambitions for the pandemic treaty or agreement, policy responses to the plight of the Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar, and his legacy objectives as he enters the final year of his term.

This is episode four in our 2024 season, which is a new beginning for the podcast after a hiatus of two years. We're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the centre – Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and Indo-Pacific regional and global development.

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].

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 full analysis at the links below:

>> view the 2024 aid budget breakfast presentation

>> download the presentation slides

>> read the blog

>> view the Australian Aid Tracker

Speakers:
Professor Stephen Howes is Director of the Development Policy Centre and Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

Dr Cameron Hill is a Senior Researcher at the Development Policy Centre.

Photo credit: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

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].

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. 

Hartman, IFAD’s Head of Global Engagement, Partnerships and Resource Mobilization, describes IFAD’s work in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, showing how IFAD funding can leverage domestic and private investment.

This is the second episode in our 2024 season, which is a new beginning for the podcast after a hiatus of two years. We're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the centre – Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and regional and global development issues.

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].

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 Preparedness and Response.

With this episode, we're relaunching our podcast after a more than two-year hiatus. In this new season, we'll bring you a mix of interviews, event recordings, and more in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the centre, namely Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and regional and global development issues.

You can also listen to a public lecture that Helen Clark delivered at the ANU by visiting our sister Crawford School of Public Policy podcast, Policy Forum Pod.

Helen Clark will return to Australia to address the 2024 World Health Summit Regional Meeting, which will be held in Melbourne from 22 - 24 April 2024.

Download the transcript.

Photo credit: David Fanner / ANU.

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 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 Warrnambool’s meatworks. This episode we leave the factory gates and head out into the community to learn why the PLS is so much more than simple stratagem to fill gaps in Australia’s assembly lines. We cheer from the sidelines during a Timor-Leste versus Vietnam soccer match, dial home to see how the money earned at Midfields is being distributed and spent, celebrate Pedro Lay’s 40th birthday, share fish and chips with a remarkable Fijian woman called Ana, listen to a Timorese choir ring through the pews at local mass, and speak to our very own PLS fixer, Dr Michael Rose from The Development Policy Centre, about opportunities to expand the scheme.

Recommended reading: Read up on the Timorese experience in Warrnambool with a blog piece by Dr Michael Rose and another by East Timorese PLS worker Cornelio Dos Santos.

Memorandum of Understanding production team:

Visual credits: Julito Couto Miranda interviews Dr Michael Rose on the sidelines of a Timor Leste versus Vietnam soccer match. Photo courtesy of MOU.

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].

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 Devpolicy’s aid budget breakfast, he answers those questions, provides analysis on the broader budget context and compares aid and defence spending. He also looks at specific aid updates, including how the Pacific Step-up has been funded, regional and sectoral trends, multilaterals and NGO aid. The analysis finishes with a look at some of the major aid initiatives in response to COVID-19 and Australian aid in the global context over the past decade.

>> view presentation

>> read blog

Speaker:
Professor Stephen Howes is Director of the Development Policy Centre and Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

Photo credit: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

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 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 West, and the site of one of Australia’s more unusual and noteworthy aid projects: the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS). In a bid to understand the work and life conditions of the East Timorese and Pacific Islanders brought to Australia under the PLS, we turn to Warrnambool’s meat processing facility, Midfield Meats. Following a safety briefing and a head-to-toe kit of personal protective equipment, we venture inside the abattoir to get the full story. We speak with a number of East Timorese PLS workers, including Pedro Lay, Vicente Pinto, and Teresinha Klau, as well as Midfield General Manager Dean McKenna, Plant Manager Alistair Sharp, and Training Manager Mick Williams, dissecting what the job entails for both employee and employer.

Post-production fact check: We made two errors in the podcast and we'd like to correct the record.

Recommended reading: Read up on the Timorese experience in Warrnambool with a blog piece by Dr Michael Rose and another by East Timorese PLS worker Cornelio Dos Santos.

Memorandum of Understanding production team:

Visual credits: The flags of Timor Leste, China, Vietnam, and Australia fly out the front of Midfield Meats. Photo courtesy of MOU.

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 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 the people who live in forest areas to safeguard it. But these people depend on forests to survive, so time and again, these efforts are met with the rational question, ‘what’s in it for me?’

BioCarbon Partners (BCP) is an African social enterprise based in Zambia that shows more value and worth can accrue to communities by keeping trees in the ground than by chopping them down. “To combat climate change, we need to protect our forests. To protect our forests, we need to invest in people.” In every sense of the word, BCP has built a self-sustaining livelihood ecosystem which allows communities to grow without encroaching on the forest that they live beside. To better understand the connections between conservation, carbon, communities and global commitments, we speak to CEO, Dr Hassan Sachedina, before juddering down Zambia’s dusty, potholed dirt roads with Communications Coordinator, Chloe Evans, to meet BCP’s community partners of the Luembe and Sandwe Chieftains.

Recommended reading: Read up on REDD+ with this Forest News explainer and a note from the IIED.

Memorandum of Understanding production team:

Visual credits: Women gathering around a BCP borehole in the Sandwe Chiefdom. Photo courtesy of BioCarbon Partners.

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 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 bad thing?

In this episode we travel to Somaliland, the northern most segment of Somalia, to tell the story of a nation that was founded on its own. We speak to Dr Sarah Phillips, an academic at the University of Sydney and author of the book When There Was No Aid, as well as Mohamed Ahmed, Sarah’s research assistant, and Ayan Mahamoud, former Head of Mission of the Republic of Somaliland to the United Kingdom, to understand how a place more state-like than state on the world map but with no flag at the United Nations, has built itself into the Horn of Africa’s sole democracy.

Recommended reading: For more on the state of play in Somaliland, read Sarah’s book When There Was No Aid, as well as Gordon’s blog piece “Doing better without aid: the case of Somaliland”. As for the global status quo on states, see the Handbook of State Recognition.

Memorandum of Understanding production team:

Visual credits: Children looking after goats in a village near Somaliland's Burco region. Photo courtesy of Ayan Mahamoud.

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].