Opening address

Hon Biman Prasad
Minister for Finance and Deputy Prime Minister, Government of Fiji

The Hon Biman Chand Prasad is leader of the National Federation Party in Fiji and currently a Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance in the coalition government. He is a former professor of economics and dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of the South Pacific.

Mitchell Oration

Dr Esperanza Martinez
Professor in the Practice of Health and Human Security, and Head of Health and Human Security, ANU

Dr Esperanza Martinez is the Professor in the Practice of Health and Human Security, and Head of Health and Human Security in the ANU College of Health and Medicine. She was part of the leadership team at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), one of the world’s oldest and most respected humanitarian organisations. As Senior Manager on Organisational Resilience, Dr Martinez focused on ICRC’s capacity to effectively respond to, and recover from, the impact of inter-connected global crises, and supported major organisational changes associated with a challenging global operating environment.

Keynote Speakers

Laurel Miller
President and Chief Executive, The Asia Foundation

Before taking up her current position in 2022, Miller worked for the RAND Corporation and The International Crisis Group. She previously held several US government positions, including deputy and then acting special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Department of State.







Dr Alice Evans
King’s College London

Dr Evans will be speaking about her forthcoming book The Great Gender Divergence and why all societies have become more gender equal, and why some are more equal than others.

Plenary panels

Australian aid effectiveness: where to from here?

Join us for the aid effectiveness panel on Wednesday 6 December from 2pm-3pm. The panel will feature the Hon Dr Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury and Assistant Minister for Employment; Dr Claire Cullen from Oxford University; and Professor Stephen Howes from the Development Policy Centre.

The panel will discuss ways to improve Australian aid effectiveness in light of the government’s new international development policy and performance framework, international best practice, and recent developments such as the establishment of the new Australian Centre for Evaluation within Treasury. The session will be chaired by Dr Jenny Gordon, a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Social Research and Methods, ANU.

Labour Mobility Panel

The expansion of Pacific labour mobility opportunities is Australia’s most important international development policy initiative of the last decade. A new ANU–World Bank report surveys thousands of workers and their families, in Australia, New Zealand and at home, as well as families of non-migrants, to work out the costs and benefits of the scheme. Dr Dung Doan, Social Protection Economist at the World Bank, and Dr Ryan Edwards, Deputy Director of the Development Policy Centre, will launch the report at a special labour mobility panel on Thursday 7 December at 4pm. Anthea Mulakala, Senior Director, International Development Cooperation, The Asia Foundation, will now chair the panel.