The final program is available here and abstracts book here.

See the abstracts, presentations and papers from the Conference here.

Opening address

Senator the Hon Penny Wong
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs

Senator Penny Wong is the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, and a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

Penny was elected to the Senate in 2001 and took her seat in 2002. In 2004, Penny was elected to the Shadow Ministry. Following the election of the Labor Government in 2007 Penny was appointed the Minister for Climate Change and Water. After the 2010 election Penny was appointed the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. In 2013, Penny was appointed Leader of the Government in the Senate. After the change of Government she was appointed the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Penny is the first woman to hold both these roles.

Penny graduated in law and arts from the University of Adelaide. Before entering politics she worked for a union, as a ministerial adviser in the NSW Labor Government, and as a lawyer.

Keynote address

Nancy Birdsall
Senior Fellow and President Emeritus, Center for Global Development

Nancy Birdsall is the founding president of the Center for Global Development. Prior to launching the center, Birdsall served for three years as Senior Associate and Director of the Economic Reform Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her work at Carnegie focused on issues of globalization and inequality, as well as on the reform of the international financial institutions. From 1993 to 1998, Birdsall was Executive Vice-President of the Inter-American Development Bank, the largest of the regional development banks, where she oversaw a $30 billion public and private loan portfolio. Before joining the Inter-American Development Bank, Birdsall spent 14 years in research, policy, and management positions at the World Bank, most recently as Director of the Policy Research Department.

Ms. Birdsall is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. She has also written more than 100 articles for books and scholarly journals published in English and Spanish. Shorter pieces of her writing have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines.

Plenary sessions

Health security and medical research
Ebola, MDR-TB, malaria. Infectious diseases will continue to threaten the health and well-being of people across our region and the world. The Australian government has announced a major regional health security fund. How can Australia best support countries to prevent and respond to infectious disease? What is a health security approach in any case? What should the balance be between research and operations? And should it all be left to DFAT or should we establish a medical ACIAR? Our expert panel as debated the biggest new initiative in the aid program since the Coalition came to power.

Chair: Jo Chandler, Journalist
Jo Chandler is an award-winning freelance Australian journalist, author and editor, journalism educator (University of Melbourne Centre for Advancing Journalism) and an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University’s Contemporary Histories Research Group. She has filed news and features from assignments across sub-Saharan Africa, Papua New Guinea, rural and remote Australia, Antarctica and Afghanistan. She has earned distinctions as an essayist, profile writer and narrative journalist, and is recognised across a range of specialty areas: science; environment; health; human rights; aid and development.

Blair Exell, Acting Deputy Secretary and Ambassador for Regional Health Security, DFAT
Blair Exell is a senior career officer with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is currently Acting Deputy Secretary and was previously First Assistant Secretary of the Development Policy Division, leading on Australia’s development policy to guide Australia’s aid program. This includes priority sectors of health, education, governance and cross-cutting themes (e.g. disability). Blair is also Australia’s first Ambassador for Regional Health Security, with the role to focus global attention on the needs of our region, strengthening national health systems and preparing the Indo-Pacific to respond to emerging health threats. Blair graduated in Economics in 1991 from The Australian National University and began his career in the not for profit development sector in Cambodia and Vietnam in 1993 before joining the Australian Government’s aid department (formerly AusAID) in 1997. Blair has been the senior aid representative based in Cambodia, Solomon Islands and Indonesia and was the Development Coordinator for Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands in 2006-07.

Mary Moran, Executive Director, Policy Cures
Dr Moran has over 20 years experience in health policy and practice, including 10 years specialising in neglected disease policy. She has conducted projects for a wide range of public and multilateral health organisations with a focus on policy solutions for emerging issues related to neglected disease R&D. In 2004, Mary founded the research group that became Policy Cures at the London School of Economics & Political Science, later transferring it to the George Institute for International Health in Sydney. Prior to forming the group, she was a diplomat and policy analyst with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade; Director of Medecins Sans Frontieres Access to Essential Medicines Campaign in Australia; and a Europe-based policy advocate with MSF on issues relating to access to medicines for neglected patients. Mary is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and an Expert Adviser to the World Health Organisation, European Commission, European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), OECD and the Wellcome Trust.

Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO, Burnet Institute
Professor Brendan Crabb AC PhD FAHMS is an infectious disease researcher with a special interest on malaria. His research group develops and exploits genetic approaches to better understand malaria parasite biology, principally to help prioritise vaccine and drug targets. Since 2008 he has been the Director and CEO of the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health Ltd (Burnet Institute). He is the past-President of the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes (AAMRI), and currently a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS), serves on the Council of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia and on the boards of both AAMRI and Research Australia. Internationally, he serves on the International Advisory Boards of both the Sanger Institute (UK) and the Vaccine Science Portfolio Advisory Committee at PATH/MVI (USA). In his home state of Victoria, Professor Crabb serves on the Victorian Government’s Science, Medical Research and Technology (SMaRT) Panel and is President of the Victorian Chapter of AAMRI.

Civil society in Asian development cooperation
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 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.

Chair: Anthea Mulakala, Director, International Development Cooperation, The Asia Foundation
Anthea Mulakala is the Director for International Development Cooperation at The Asia Foundation. In this capacity she leads the Foundation’s work on Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation. She served as Country Representative in Malaysia from 2007 to 2014. Since 2010 she has concurrently led the Foundation’s engagement on development effectiveness and aid policy as the Senior Advisor, International Development Cooperation. She has been overseeing programs in Asia since 1991. Prior to joining the Foundation, she worked for the World Bank, South Asia Partnership, and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Supriya Roychoudhury, Independent Analyst on Indian development cooperation
Supriya is currently an independent analyst specialising in India’s development partnerships. She recently served as Emerging Powers Coordinator at Crisis Action, where she was responsible for engaging policymakers and partners in India, Brazil and China to prevent and stop armed conflict. As the former lead of Oxfam India’s foreign policy program, Supriya coordinated its research and advocacy strategy on South-South Cooperation issues. In her current role as an independent analyst and advisor, she has co-led an international research project to develop a sustainability framework for adoption by the BRICS’ ‘New Development Bank. Her research has appeared in various journals and publications, and she is currently co-authoring a study which explores the domestic politics that drive India’s development cooperation strategies. Supriya holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Warwick and a First Class Honours degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi.

Jin-kyung Kim, Program Specialist, Civil Society Cooperation Team, Korean International Cooperation Agency
Dr. Jin-kyung Kim is a program specialist of the Civil Society Cooperation Team at the KOICA. Her recent publications include “Ch.5 Postwar Reconstruction: Foreign Aid from the United States and South Korea’s Space for Developing Capacity and Strengthening Ownership” in Korea and the World: Contemporary History and its Implications (2015, co-authored with Eun Mee Kim). She received her Ph.D. in International Studies from Ewha Womans University.

Takeshi Komino, General Secretary, Church World Service, Japan
Takeshi Komino currently serves as General Secretary of Church World Service (CWS) Japan, Deputy Director at Community World Service Asia, and Secretary General of Executive Committee of Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN). He is also a member of Advisory Group for Humanitarian Policy and Practice for ACT Alliance, which CWS is a member of. Prior to this, he worked as Head of Emergencies at CWS-Asia/Pacific regional office in Bangkok, represented ADRRN as a member of the Regional Steering Group (RSG) for World Humanitarian Summit regional consultation for North and Southeast Asia, and remains the RSG member for Asia. He also co-founded the Japanese disaster risk reduction (DRR) network, Japan CSO Coalition for DRR, to communicate to the world the lessons from East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. He serves as chair for the recently-established Quality and Accountability Network in Japan (JQAN), and as Deputy Secretary of the NGO Unit at Japan Platform.

Haoming Huang, Vice-President, China Association for Non-Profit Organisations
Dr Haoming Huang is a Professor at the China Global Philanthropy Institute, Honorary Chairman of the China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO), and Vice-President of the China Association for Non-Profit Organisations. He is also a Professor at the Institute of Philanthropy, Tsinghua University, at the School of Public Policy and Management, Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and at the Chinese Academy of Governance. He is widely published on NGO work, including a study on Strategy and Route of China’s NGO Internationalisation (2015), a case study on Reform and Innovation on Science and Technology NGOs (2015) and NGOs and Sustainable Development - a case study from China, Europe and South America (English version, 2014).

Three Minute Aid Pitch (3MAP)
3MAP: the Three-Minute Aid Pitch took place for the second time at the 2018 conference. 3MAP was first introduced at the 2017 AAC, and is an interactive plenary session to discuss ideas for improving Australian aid and international development policy. Speakers presented and discussed their proposals for no more than 3 minutes each, followed by rapid-fire audience reaction, and a vote. For a taste of what 3MAP is like, check out the video from the 2017 AAC here.

Photo exhibition

Nick Danziger is a world-renowned photojournalist whose photographs have appeared in newspapers and magazines worldwide, toured museums and galleries internationally, and are held in numerous collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, London. He has won several awards including the World Press Photo 1st Prize 2004 in the Single Portrait Award for his ‘mirror’ image of Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush. In 2007, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society, and he holds the Royal Geographical Society’s Ness Award for raising public understanding of social, political and environmental issues.

In 2005, Nick travelled to eight countries, across four continents, to document the lives of poor women and children. He returned five years later – and then again in 2015 – to assemble a stark and extraordinary portrait of life on the fringes of some of the world’s poorest places. This exhibition, ‘Revisited 2005-2010-2015’, will be shown in Canberra from Thursday February 15 to Sunday April 8 at the Drill Hall Gallery, The Australian National University.