What does the Australian public think about foreign aid? This Discussion Paper collates and summarises survey and omnibus poll data collected between 2011 and 2015 on a range of topics related to Australian foreign aid. These include opinions related to the value and objectives of foreign aid,...

Hart's informality was an elusive thread in the fabric of Port Moresby, capital and principal urban centre of Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the late colonial period, 1945-75. Commencing in the late period of preparation for Independence, a genuine PNG voice emerged in the colonial legislature...

This paper discusses electoral quality in the Melanesian countries of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Drawing on a range of qualitative and quantitative evidence it argues that the electoral malpractice the countries experience is a product of three interacting political economies. The...

In recent years, renewable energy technologies have been advocated in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific as a risk-mitigation measure against oil price volatility. Despite this, there have been no attempts to measure the impact of renewable technologies on financial risk in...

Recently, the direct distribution of natural resource wealth through cash transfers (“resources-to-cash”) has been recommended to help avoid the resource curse. Mongolia is perhaps the only developing country that has actually introduced a resources-to-cash scheme. While the scheme has...

Developing countries invest in training skilled workers and can lose part of their investment if those workers emigrate. One response is for the destination countries to design ways to participate in financing skilled emigrants' training before they migrate — linking skill creation and skill...

The Fijian economy seems to be have made a sustained recovery since 2011 after the impact of the economic fallout from the December 2006 coup. However, the recovery may not be as great as is being forecast by the Reserve Bank of Fiji. Higher growth rates have mostly remained elusive, despite the...

Enterprise challenge funds use overseas aid to subsidise private investment in poverty-reducing business ventures in developing countries, where such ventures have good medium-term prospects of commercial viability but would probably have been left on the shelf without subsidies. These funds are...

Steve Pollard, known in the Pacific as a government employee, researcher, consultant, and donor staffer, recently retired from the ADB. He has almost 30 years' experience working toward the interests of better policy for better livelihoods in the Pacific, almost 40 years' experience in...