8 Dec 2025
The Marshall Islands’ experiment with a universal basic income
The scheme tests whether microstates can sustain widespread cash transfers, with the Pacific watching on.
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8 Dec 2025
Cyclones to coups: Crises drive violence against women
Governments treat gendered violence as an afterthought, leaving millions vulnerable across the Indo-Pacific. -
5 Dec 2025
Landlocked Africa is an open opportunity for Australia
Rather than compete on aid volumes, Australia could leverage remote logistics expertise as quality partner for major projects. -
4 Dec 2025
Markets have the money, developing countries need the projects – what’s stopping them?
Investors assume developing economies are risky, but evidence shows the opposite. -
4 Dec 2025
What happens when Cambodia graduates from aid but isn’t self-sustaining?
Cambodia’s “missing middle” means economic growth hasn’t yet produced the managers and technicians the country needs. -
10 Nov 2025
A new model for forest finance or just more debt?
The Tropical Forests Forever Facility promises billions for conservation but ties conservation funding to the debt burdens already crushing developing economies. -
27 Oct 2025
Pacific development: The essential local ingredient for sustainability
Donor agencies are discovering what should have been obvious: Pacific islanders are best placed to solve Pacific problems. -
17 Oct 2025
Signal failure for China’s railway diplomacy in Southeast Asia
As Indonesia renegotiates railway debt with China, other Southeast Asian nations face a cautionary tale about mega-projects. -
16 Oct 2025
Australia should heed Britain’s tough choices – and its mistakes
Development spending prevents conflicts and builds resilience – dismissing it as secondary betrays decades of effective practice. -
16 Oct 2025
The legal reform needed to match Australia’s global humanitarian promises
Humanitarian workers face danger abroad – and legal uncertainty at home under Australia’s current laws. -
16 Oct 2025
Who will salvage the SDGs as Western donors retreat?
Developing nations can forge new coalitions to champion the 2030 Agenda and fill the leadership void. -
13 Oct 2025
COP30: Is the bioeconomy the answer to equitable prosperity?
The Brazil meeting will need to confront old tropes of competition and control over the world’s natural resources. -
19 Sep 2025
Global health at risk: Why Australia’s leadership matters
Washington’s aid freeze threatens decades of progress against infectious diseases across Australia’s neighbourhood. -
18 Sep 2025
Climate disasters aren’t natural – and calling them that makes things worse
Our language puts a mask on human responsibility. This is one change that could make for a better environment. -
5 Sep 2025
Afghanistan’s earthquake is a force multiplier of fragility
The latest disaster is another blow to isolated communities already reeling from food insecurity, drought and mass refugee returns. -
29 Aug 2025
Triple shock threatens Southeast Asia’s development model
Tariffs, border disputes and shrinking aid budgets combine to challenge six decades of regional economic progress. -
27 Aug 2025
Kashmir’s double burden: Climate change and conflict
Recurring floods in disputed Kashmir highlight how geopolitical tensions compound climate vulnerabilities and hinder long-term solutions. -
29 Jul 2025
Australians ahead of the game in aid debate, MPs should follow
Canberra should take advantage of a rare alignment forming on Australia’s global role. -
22 Jul 2025
Climate disasters drain Southeast Asia’s shrinking aid budgets
The 2025 Lowy Institute Southeast Asia Aid Map reveals relief spending has soared while prevention investment stagnates, forcing hard choices for development partners. -
21 Jul 2025
Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill: A domestic deal with Indo-Pacific consequences
America’s new act reinforces the reality that internal choices are rarely contained within borders. -
14 Jul 2025
Taxing the world’s most generous givers
A 3.5% levy on diaspora remittance transfers could reduce vital flows by billions at the very time aid budgets are shrinking. -
13 Jun 2025
Tigray can’t afford another war, and the world can’t afford to do nothing
Australia should encourage international condemnation after a blockade of relief trucks in the northern regions of Ethiopia. -
13 Jun 2025
The upside of the world’s downgrade in foreign aid
Australia has an opportunity to fill the gap left by the US and Europe – and it’s good for democracy, too. -
6 Jun 2025
A scorecard for Australian aid
The measures of success with an OECD peer review about to get underway. -
4 Jun 2025
How Papua New Guinea is rewriting Pacific education partnerships with China and more
District-led programs are driving a new demand for technical degrees and signalling a new agency in foreign relations. -
15 May 2025
Pacific health systems: Breaking the aid dependency cycle
Donor dependency is not a path to health sovereignty in the region. -
8 May 2025
Blue bonds and mangrove protection: Small island nations lead in climate resilience
Localised approaches to environmental, social and governance standards prove more effective than global models. -
8 May 2025
More than stability: Australia’s aid program needs hard decisions now
Everything cannot be a priority. -
1 May 2025
What the Pacific sees at stake in the Australian election
Climate policy, aid and regional respect hang in the balance. -
11 Apr 2025
Comparing Chinese and Australian aid in Tonga: Visibility, pageantry and performance
A case study in being seen to deliver. -
4 Apr 2025
“Aligning” aid: Which interests and whose interests?
The nexus between the provision of development assistance and the national interests it helps serve has always been contingent and contested. -
27 Mar 2025
Australian aid budget 2025: Choices on hold
The local debates are only just starting about responding to dramatic global shifts. -
27 Mar 2025
The Philippines walks a tightrope with Chinese aid
Pragmatism, not ideology, is driving development finance decisions. -
25 Mar 2025
Beyond politics: Australia’s role in solving the Rohingya crisis
More than a million people in disease ridden camps in our region should be a national concern. -
21 Mar 2025
Europe compounding Trump aid vandalism – Australia must take a different path
Emergencies will still demand political responses, but those responses will be fragmented, inefficient, and much less effective. -
18 Mar 2025
US aid cuts are a soft power surrender to China
Even a static China will see its influence fill the vacuum left by US withdrawal. -
11 Mar 2025
Protecting frontline humanitarians: Australia’s role as a middle power
Coming off the deadliest year on record for aid workers, Australia is well positioned to drive diplomatic change. -
6 Mar 2025
Missed signals: What Southeast Asia wants vs what Australia delivers
With US aid disappearing, a new report shows Australia has a chance to align development cooperation with the region’s challenges and Australia’s strengths. -
6 Mar 2025
How US funding cuts could exacerbate North Korea’s humanitarian crisis
Trump’s obsession with getting the deal and an interest in resuming talks with Kim Jong Un all spell trouble for human rights. -
3 Mar 2025
Is this the end of aid as we know it?
The task for Western aid is not to rebuild what existed before, but to reduce dependency altogether. -
27 Feb 2025
UK aid cut: Implications for an increasingly lonely Australia
Starmer’s announcement is another demonstration of a narrowing perception of global security. -
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13 Feb 2025
How Australia should respond to the implosion of US aid
Australia’s interests won’t be served by letting vital multilateral anchors of the “rules-based order” wither, decay and collapse. -
10 Feb 2025
Aid on ice: How Trump’s freeze hurts the Pacific and Southeast Asia
The outlook is anything but reassuring. -
31 Jan 2025
Where geopolitics and development meet
“National interest” needn’t be a banned phrase, and acknowledgement can help make aid partnerships more honest. -
28 Jan 2025
ASEAN’s new developmental divide
The admission of Timor-Leste will recall quarter-century-old unease about the development gap within the association. -
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19 Dec 2024
Vanuatu: The challenge to build back
A crippling earthquake will test Vanuatu’s already fragile political and economic system. -
19 Dec 2024
What a Trump second term holds for global development
Judging by track records, there's a bumpy road ahead for aid, health and climate funding. -
18 Dec 2024
What I’ll be watching for in 2025
Lowy researchers gaze at their crystal balls – with questions, more than answers, for the year ahead.