The Pacific region is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which carry the risk of significant economic costs. The Asian Development Bank’s report on the economics of climate change in the Pacific aims to raise the level of understanding of all sectors and stakeholders on possible impacts of climate change, with analyses that lead to regional strategies supported by national programs linked to local policies and activities. It focuses on Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu with broader regional results also included.

In the report, projections of total economic damage to the Pacific due to climate change are provided in various scenarios. Economic assessment associated with climate information is undertaken to identify priority sectors, estimate funding needs, and prepare for economy-wide climate change impacts.

In this public seminar, Xianbin Yao, Director General of the Pacific Department of the Asian Development Bank and Cyn-Young Park, Assistant Chief Economist and Director of the Economic Analysis and Operations Support Division in the Economics Research Department of the Asian Development Bank presented the report’s key findings and discused its implications.

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The small states of the Asia and Pacific region face unique challenges in raising their growth potential and living standards relative to other small states due to their small populations, geographical isolation and dispersion, narrow export and production bases, exposure to shocks, and heavy reliance on aid. Higher fixed government costs, low access to credit by the private sector, and capacity constraints are also key challenges.

The econometric analysis confirms that the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have underperformed relative to their peers over the last 20 years.

Although these countries often face more limited policy tools, policies do matter and can help build resilience and raise potential growth. The Asia and Pacific small states should continue rebuilding buffers and improve the composition of public spending. Regional solutions should also continue to be pursued.

Dr Patrizia Tumbarello, Unit Chief for the International Monetary Fund Pacific Island Unit presented on the IMF’s recent work on small states. Vivek Suri, the World Bank’s Lead Economist for the Pacific, acted as discussant.

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The most serious problems that developing countries face are increasingly international in nature. Climate change, water scarcity, communicable diseases, food insecurity and the depletion of forests and fisheries—all these things call for cooperation at the regional or global levels, as well as action at the national level. Such cooperation is often mediated by international organisations and much of it is funded by aid. But global aid is shrinking in this era of austerity and international organisations face strong incentives to direct scarce resources to urgent national priorities. Moreover, international cooperation has had few wins in recent years and international organisations are increasingly facing crises of identity and relevance, with their missions, policies and governance arrangements coming under fire from many directions.

What would it take for international organisations to play a more effective role in dealing with global challenges important for development? Our three panelists addressed this question from complementary perspectives. Warren Evans talked about the financing and management reforms needed for the World Bank to play a more effective role in addressing climate change and providing other global goods. James Moody argued for more effective institutional arrangements to support innovation and the dissemination of knowledge for development. Patrick Weller presented findings emerging from his ongoing work on the governance of international organisations, illustrating how the informal dynamics of strategic decision-making both limit and create opportunities for reform. The panel was chaired by Robin Davies.

This forum was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University

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How do we plan, campaign and work in development when we don’t know what is going to happen and we don’t know what solutions will work? Aid professionals know that real life has a way of ignoring our plans and procedures, but often we block out that knowledge in order to keep functioning. In this talk, Duncan Green asked what would we do differently, if we acknowledge and try to adapt to the messiness of reality.

Dr Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, Honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He was previously a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University, a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development at the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), a Policy Analyst on trade and globalisation at the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Head of Research and Engagement at the Just Pensions project on socially responsible investment.

He is author of From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World (Oxfam International, June 2008) and has written several books on Latin America including Silent Revolution: The Rise and Crisis of Market Economics in Latin America (2003), Faces of Latin America (2006) and Hidden Lives: Voices of Children in Latin America and the Caribbean (1998).

This lecture was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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Decades of conflict have eroded the physical and social fabric of Afghanistan, with severe impacts on the lives of children. Kerry Boland, consultant to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), talked about her experience building formal and informal mechanisms to protect children in Afghanistan.

Kerry Boland discussed her experience with UNICEF in supporting the Afghan government to set up a Child Protection Action Network (CPAN). Reflecting on her work with the Afghan government, NGOs, community and religious leaders in the provinces, she illustrated how child protection issues are identified and dealt with in local communities. In particular, she gave her perspective on initiatives to prevent and eradicate abuse and exploitation, with special attention to ending early and forced marriage and hazardous and exploitive labour.

Kerry has worked in a range of conflict-affected situations in Afghanistan, Chad, Sri Lanka, Turkey and elsewhere. Her work has focused on protection issues related to women and children. She is the author of Children on the Move, a UNICEF study on children of Afghan origin moving to western countries. She has worked for the Australian Red Cross and was a Senior Member of the Refugee Review Tribunal.
This lecture was presented by the Development Policy Centre and the Children’s Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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Since the mid-1990s, economic growth rates in large and populous middle-income countries have substantially outpaced those in OECD countries. This has reshaped the global economy and favoured convergence in global income per capita. The process of ‘shifting wealth’ was led by China and India, but other countries are also contributing to it, including Brazil and South Africa. In spite of the persistence of large gaps in income per capita between OECD and non-OECD economies and the wide inequality within developing countries, most developing countries have improved their macroeconomic management and have started to address long-term structural challenges.

Developing countries are still accumulating capital and labour but they are also improving capabilities and increasingly using and producing innovations. However, mastering technology and knowledge in order to move up the value chain is still a goal to be achieved for most of them. To address the new development challenges, some countries are implementing industrial policies to sustain growth by diversifying and upgrading domestic production.The renewed interest in industrial policy poses new challenges and opportunities for policy makers. These issues were explored in this lecture by Mario Pezzini and are based on the 2013 OECD Development Centre report, Perspectives on Global Development 2013: industrial policies in a changing world.

Mr Mario Pezzini is Director of the OECD Development Centre. Prior to joining the OECD, Mr Pezzini was Professor in Industrial Economics at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris as well as in US and Italian Universities. Mr Pezzini has also served as an advisor in the field of economic development, industrial organisation and regional economics in international organisations and think tanks, including the International Labour Organisation, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, European Commission and Nomisma in Italy.
This lecture was presented by the Development Policy Centre and Crawford graduate course CRW8000, Government, Markets and Global Change at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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Over the past decade, the world has witnessed a digital revolution and its impacts have not been limited to those living in wealthy countries. By 2014, it is predicted there will be more active mobile phones on the planet than people.

Increasingly, those in the aid sector are seeing the potential for these media and communication technologies to be harnessed for development.

But can these tools transform democracy, governance, transparency, accountability and humanitarian responses? Or does their power lie in generating hype rather than impact?

Drawing on their experience implementing programs and conducting research in Asia and the Pacific, panelists from ANU and Internews, an NGO working to strengthen information quality and access in developing countries, discussed and answered questions on the potential of new communications technologies and approaches.

This forum was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.

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The 2013 Pacific and PNG Update provides a forum for the discussion of the latest economic, social and political developments in the region. The Update was hosted by the Development Policy Centre, and supported by the Asian Development Bank’s Pacific Economic Management Technical Assistance Project; and the Asia and Pacific Policy Studies, the flagship publication of the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU in partnership with Australian Aid, AusAID.

The updates are designed to bring together leading thinkers and policy makers from the Pacific and Papua New Guinea to discuss important topics such as regional trade and integration, employment and labor mobility, and service delivery, resource management and gender-based violence.

The 2013 Pacific Update consisted of two days of panel discussions: day one on the Pacific; and day two on Papua New Guinea.

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Papua New Guinea recently completed its second national household consumption survey, potentially enabling poverty comparisons with baseline estimates from 14 years earlier. But the methods used by the recent 2009/10 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) differ in important ways from those of the 1996 PNG Household Survey (PNGHS) which makes poverty comparisons more difficult.

This talk described the two surveys and the poverty estimates derived from them, and discussed the apparent trends from the poverty comparisons that are possible. Special attention was paid to the poverty situation in Port Moresby, for which longer term comparisons are possible (by also using the Urban Household Survey of the 1980s) that are less affected by changes in survey methods.

John Gibson is a Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Waikato and a Senior Research Associate of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Since receiving his PhD from Stanford University he has worked in Cambodia, China, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Vietnam. His recent publications have appeared in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and Journal of Health Economics.
This lecture was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

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Having achieved historically unprecedented economic growth over recent years, African countries now face the challenge of structurally transforming their economies. However, the politics of how to do this remains controversial. The standard international advice on good governance and the adoption of a ‘golden thread’ of sound institutions is not supported by historical and comparative evidence.

The key thing is not getting the right institutions but having a political settlement that allows economic rents to be harnessed to development purposes rather than used to cement a pragmatic bargain among ethically or otherwise divided elites. In view of the likely predominance in Africa of competitively clientelistic trajectories, attention should be focused on creative ways of mitigating their negative implications for economic transformation.

These are among the headline findings of Africa Power and Politics Program (APPP) a five-year research program led by ODI with research teams in Ghana, Malawi, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe, and partners in the US and France.

David Booth was Director of APPP during 2007-12 and now coordinates a follow-on project on Initiating and Sustaining Developmental Regimes in Africa. Before joining ODI in 1998, he was Professor of Development Studies at the University of Wales, Swansea. He was also a managing editor of the Journal of Development Studies and Development Policy Review.
This lecture is presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.

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The incidence of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is amongst the highest in the world.

Ume Wainetti is National Coordinator of the PNG Family and Sexual Violence Action Committee (FSVAC), the body charged with coordinating the national response to gender-based violence.She has years of experience in leading PNG’s response to gender-based violence.

In this public forum, Ume Wainetti explored the gains made, the promising approaches, and the challenges ahead for an effective response to gender-based violence in PNG. In particular, she argues for the critical need to fill the missing gap in case management to ensure that survivors in PNG have a better chance of getting the services and support they need.
This lecture was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy. The Australian National University.

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Many questions surround the 2013-14 aid budget. In the May 2012 budget, Labor pushed back its goal of increasing aid to 0.5% of GNI by a year to 2016/17. In response the Coalition removed the timetable from its commitment altogether. To deliver on its promise of a foreign aid increase this year to 0.37% of GNI, the Government needs to increase aid by about $600 million. But will it? As we move towards an election with the government under fiscal pressure, what will the 2013-14 aid budget look like? Will the cuts to the aid budget associated with funding of asylum-seeker costs be reversed? Is the expansion of the aid program to Africa now a thing of the past? And what is happening to the aid effectiveness agenda?

The annual aid budget is the most important event for the aid sector. And it is a time when the entire sector converges on Canberra for the budget lock up. The Development Policy Centre presented its analysis. We also heard from a member of the executive at IDC Australia, and the new head of Oxfam.

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Rachel Kyte, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank, spoke about the risk a 4 degree warmer world poses for development and the impact of sea-level rise, heat waves and extreme weather events globally, and in Australia and Oceania. Everyone will be affected by the changing climate, but the poor and vulnerable will suffer most.

She argued that we must avoid a 4 degree warmer world and prepare for 2 degrees, and highlighted the actions that would make the biggest difference. However, while climate change is a major threat, inclusive green growth is an opportunity. Ms Kyte outlined the World Bank Group’s efforts to catalyze climate-smart development and green growth.

Rachel Kyte became Vice President of Sustainable Development at the World Bank in September, 2011. As such, she has overall responsibilities for the organization’s global work in agriculture, environment, energy, infrastructure, urban, and social development, along with global public goods issues in those areas. Prior to her appointment, she was the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Vice President for Business Advisory Services and a member of IFC’s Management Team.

This public seminar was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy,The Australian National University.

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The One Health Initiative is a movement to forge inclusive collaborations between physicians, veterinarians and other scientific-health and environmentally related disciplines. It’s a transdisciplinary way of thinking, used by those working towards a common goal of optimising human and animal health globally.

One Health concepts and ideas are some of the oldest in the health discipline, yet they have not become mainstream. In this public lecture, Jonathan Rushton, Professor of Animal Health Economics, Royal Veterinary College, will explore the economic logic of health interventions, areas where One Health can add value to an infectious disease management and whether this added value is sufficient for a One Health business case in order to improve resource allocation and improve economic and social returns.

Jonathan Rushton is an agricultural economist who specialises in livestock economics and development. He works on livestock development, animal diseases and One Health issues in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He sits on the management committee of the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health, is a non-executive director of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England and has played a role in the debates on One Health through his continuing associations with the World Bank, FAO and CDC.

This public seminar was presented by the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy,The Australian National University.

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