Aid & Development

With confirmed Covid-19 cases now well past the million mark, most of the world is looking inward. Many countries feel overwhelmed by their local fight against the virus. But while some countries are just coping, others face a choice between stopping the pandemic or a famine. Most likely they will

The humanitarian system is facing unprecedented uncertainty in the midst of the biggest pandemic since 1918. Over the last 10 years, the requirements for emergency relief programs have consistently outstripped resources – before the outbreak of Covid-19, efforts were aimed to address the needs of

Millions of people in the developing world are at risk from coronavirus. These countries lack the economic resources and medical infrastructure of their more developed counterparts but can learn lessons from their response and benefit from their support. The situation Earlier this year, when the

World Bank President David Malpass reminds us how women empowerment can foster the full economic potential of a country. In this piece he explains what the Bank does to facilitate the economic power of women.The spread of Covid-19 has so far mostly involved countries with decent health systems. But

This year we celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March (with the theme #EachforEqual), the 25th anniversary of the UN Beijing Platform for Action, and the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 inaugurating the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. At the Raisina Dialogue in New

The World Bank research body was blocked from publishing – and then subsequently allowed – a new paper exploring how 7.5% of the money the international organisation had sent to developing countries was being stashed in secret offshore banks.Melissa Conley Tyler challenges the way development

Indonesia’s booming economy has been growing between 5% and 6% for years and its GDP (PPP) is well ahead of Australia’s. A G20 member, it is proud of its new status as an emerging middle-class country, with PricewaterhouseCoopers predicting it will be among the world’s top five economies by

Book Review: Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (Penguin, 2019) It’s a seductive idea – the notion that we can “do good” for people and the planet while also profiting from the status quo, that we can make a difference without it really

The “Australia–China–Papua New Guinea Pilot Cooperation on Malaria Control Project” is one of the most famous aid projects in the Pacific. It is not a large project. Indeed, at $1.3 million per year it represents only about 0.2% of Australia’s bilateral aid spending in PNG. Its fame

Australia and China cooperating in the Pacific Islands? At first glance it seems absurd. Australia-China relations are hardly warm and glowing right now. Just in the last few weeks, there’s been a focus on alleged espionage courtesy of Wang Liqiang, claims of attempted political

2014 marked the 70th anniversary of the Bretton Woods conference, and it was a turning point for the global financial architecture. In July that year, the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – established the New Development Bank (NDB). A few months earlier, China

The big boost When Prime Minister Scott Morrison put the South Pacific at the centre of his foreign policy priorities last year, the relatively low-profile Export Finance Insurance Corporation was suddenly thrust into the strategic limelight. But last week’s foray into a form of state

Bryan Caplan makes the argument for his “Trillion Dollar Idea” – international open borders, which would allow productive labour to work in productive places.A group of Stanford researchers found Russian-run fake Facebook accounts attempting to influence public political opinion in four

In the last two years China’s engagement in the Pacific – particularly through its aid program – has sparked alarm in Canberra. The spiking orange line in 2017 is part of the story. In 2017 China committed to spend almost US$5 billion in the Pacific. US$4.1 billion of that was to upgrade

Three development specialists (MIT economists Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, and Harvard economist Michael Kremer) won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their groundbreaking work on global poverty, studying interventions in a range of areas: combating teacher absenteeism, direct cash transfers to

In the varied debates about influence in the Pacific, rarely does Japan’s position in the region feature prominently. On the off chance that Japan’s presence in the Pacific is discussed, its “aid diplomacy” is usually characterised in quid pro quo terms. Yet a closer examination of Japan

The Pacific Islands are grappling with the effects of disasters and climate change, which have the potential to make entire countries inhospitable, posing significant development challenges. Small Pacific Islands countries have limited natural resources, are far from major markets, and are

In August last year, the Lowy Institute launched our flagship Pacific research project, the Pacific Aid Map. Foreign aid is an important resource flow for many parts of the Pacific, making up 7% of regional GDP. Leaving out Fiji and Papua New Guinea, this number shoots up to 27%. But the world of

Fin Tarp and Sinikka Parviainen discuss the economic benefits of migration and refugees.An African doctor is believed to have found anti-Ebola drugs, with an efficiency rate of 90%. Zimbabwe’s former finance minister explains the deep roots of the economic crisis in the country at the time of

China is changing the way Australia’s political elites think about aid. Chinese aid to the Pacific isn’t new, but in recent years, “China the aid donor” has become an unavoidable presence. In response, the Australian government is increasing the Pacific focus of its aid programs. It has also

Despite the recent spotlight on Chinese aid and labels of China as an “emerging donor”, China has actually been delivering foreign aid since as far back as the 1950s. Indeed, China provided aid to North Korea for reconstruction purposes after the Korean War, along with Cambodia, Nepal and Egypt

What counts as aid? Whether it’s disaster relief, infrastructure, or a much longer term and less visible type of development assistance, in the end it all comes back to money. But the many differing types of aid does create awkward discrepancies when seeking to rank the contributions by nations

Gender equality is fundamental to human development. Papua New Guinea is Australia’s closest neighbour and biggest recipient of Australia’s bilateral development aid globally ­– but significant and persistent inequalities remain when it comes to the status of women in society, sexual violence

If you are interested in teaching people what development economics is, look at David Evans’ presentation to a youth group, making it easy for everyone to understand the wealth inequalities of this world.Similarly, Professor Lord Nicholas Stern analyses an extraordinary dataset that has been