Asian countries have been providing foreign aid, in various forms, for decades. However, over the past few years these newer (or 'non-traditional' or 'emerging') donors have begun to have a noticeable impact on the global development picture. 

Graph compares annual aid budgets of OECD donors with estimates (in yellow) of those of emerging donors. Courtesy of the Center for Global Development.

Asian economies have growing financial resources, expanding strategic interests, and rapidly increasing dependence on imported energy, food and minerals. It comes as no surprise they are building up development assistance programs to use in their expanding foreign policy objectives.

Asian donors are using these growing aid programs to form new and influential relationships in developing countries in the Asia Pacific, across government, civil society and the private sector. As these relationships evolve and strengthen, they alter the social, economic and political development of the Asia Pacific, a region which, by 2016, will be responsible for 42% of the world's GDP (based on PPP; in comparison, Europe and North, South, Central America and the Caribbean combined will have 49% of the world's GDP in 2016). 2016 is also the year the Chinese economy is set to surpass of the US. We are well and truly living in an Asian Century.

Got a question for New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully? Or Shamima Ali from the Women's Crisis Centre, Fiji? Andrew Abel (Surfing Association of Papua New Guinea)? Ann Sherry (Carnival Australia)? Hiran Cooray (Pacific Asia Travel Association)? Vanessa Slowey (Digicel Pacific)? The Prime Minister of Samoa?

This could be your moment.

The Lowy Institute's Myer Foundation Melanesia program is hosting an international conference, 'Pacific Islands and the World: Realising the Pacific's Potential', in Auckland on 4-5 September, with the cooperation of New Zealand’s Motu Institute. The conference is a curtain-raiser to the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Summit in Auckland and will bring together the private sector, civil society, media and Pacific political leaders to discuss Pacific policy, something that has to be debated, discussed and endorsed by whole communities. We hope participants will share their views, put forward new ideas for our region and challenge the status quo.

The conference will focus on the Pacific's potential and the contribution the region's resources can make to economic and human development. It will look at how to convert returns from the region's natural resources — including minerals, fisheries and forestry — into better living standards. Speakers will explore how innovation can extend the promise of the tourism industry and how the peoples of the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand can further realise their potential through good leadership, access to migration, use of new technologies, the rise of social media and increased regional and international integration.

We have set up a conference page on Facebook, accessible through our Lowy Facebook page, where we will dump all conference material, including audio recordings (following the conference), speeches, any video we can get our hands on, newspaper articles and posts by Pacific bloggers.

Papua New Guinea is embracing the digital revolution. It has been 14 years since the internet arrived in PNG, and suddenly there is a rapidly growing group of young, mobile-carrying, text-happy, internet-connected residents who are taking to social media in droves.

It makes sense. PNG's population of 6.4 million people are scattered across a large land mass, and travel between regions is hindered by poor transport links and road infrastructure. The internet is the perfect solution to overcoming these physical barriers. Yet five years ago, the internet situation in PNG was substandard, with limited, low-speed download capacity and low access to computers (especially in rural areas). All of this is changing.

As Rowan Callick recently reported, 'the arrival of 3G (in PNG) has enabled people to go online throughout the country, accelerating the attractions of Facebook, which has already attracted 35,000 users'. It has been three months since Rowan's article and an additional 13,000 Papua New Guineans have since jumped on the social networking site; 65% of them are 18-34 years old.

PNG bloggers and activist groups are also popping up everywhere in the digital domain. NGO groups, particularly women's groups, are increasingly using the web and social media as a platform for open expression and to connect with like-minded individuals. Prime Minister Michael Somare's retirement last month was broken by journalists in PNG via Twitter, hours before the first article appeared online.

Despite this growth, internet penetration is at only 2% of the population, totaling approximately 125,000 internet users, low when compared with countries such as Fiji.

Last week US President Barack Obama held the first White House Twitter Town Hall event, taking questions from  tweeters on the US economy.

This event followed similar Facebook and YouTube events the President hosted earlier in 2011, and generated a colossal amount of discussion on Twitter. Over the course of the one-hour event, 70,000 tweets were recorded, averaging over 1000 tweets a minute, with #askobama trending in large cities across the US (Washington, DC recorded the most questions).

Probably intended as a domestically focused event, questions came from all over the world, and it was pleasing to see Sydneysiders so engaged in the discussion.

The US Government is miles ahead of any other country in its use of new media tools for public engagement, and its unmatched expertise in e-diplomacy is paving the way for other countries to capitalise on their successes (while passing over the odd failure). Many aspects of the US Government's e-diplomacy strategy, and those of other forward-thinking states, could easily be replicated or tweaked for use down under.

Australians are the most prolific users of social media in the world, clocking 6 hours 52 minutes on social media every month, according to 2010 Nielsen data. Australians have truly become social media addicts, led of course by the fickle, technology-obsessed Generation Y. More recently Australians have taken, in growing numbers, to tweeting during some of their favourite TV shows, from ABCs Q&A  (#qanda) to MasterChef, and then of course, there was 'Go Back to Where You Came From' (#gobacksbs) on SBS, which became the top trending topic in the world.

Without a doubt, we are the ideal captured audience for social media engagement. The Australian Government needs to give in, catch up and allow itself to be transformed by the potential these digital tools offer.

Crossposted from our sister-site Interpreting the aid review.

• We are blogging on for another few weeks. We are always on the look out for content, so if you have any views on the future policy direction of Australia's aid program (or something to share with readers) send it through.
• The World Bank and the IMF met in Washington last week. Why don't we care anymore?
• India's sex ratio: where have all the girls gone? A cultural preference for sons and the increasing availability of prenatal screening have helped contribute to a worsening in India's sex ratio. 
• Such imbalances are not confined to India. Last year the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warned that by 2020 one in five young Chinese men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women.
• Amnesty International analyses the human costs of the 'social media revolution'.
• USAID head Rajiv Shah has warned congress that at least 70,000 children around the world could die if funding for USAID's global health programs were to be cut under the Republican budget proposal. His remarks weren't popular with this blogger (thanks Raoul). 

Photo by Flickr user US Mission Geneva.

Cross-posted from our sister site, Interpreting the aid review.

• Interpreting the aid review will come to an end on Friday 15 April. We are always happy to accept last-minute pieces so get blogging before this unique and open avenue for discussion and debate on Australia's aid program disappears. 
• This Guardian article urges aid agencies to begin listening to the people they're helping. How? By eliciting feedback (polling, social media) and then responding to it. (thanks Gobie) 
• Cynthia Banham easily convinces me that the independent aid review should be putting women at the centre of Australia's aid strategy. (thanks Susan)
• Andrew Leigh, Federal Member for Fraser, insists that foreign aid should be beyond politics as 'the policy is very clear'. He has an interesting blog on aid, corruption & the rise of China as an aid donor. (thanks @ShobazKandola)
• The Lowy Institute has a new publication 'China in the Pacific: The new banker in town'.
• The Global Dashboard, a fantastic blog on development and emerging global issues, looks at the future of international aid. It's also worth flicking over the comments.
• Finally, an English subtitled trailer for a new documentary about Internet usage in Indonesia, by the NGO ICT Watch. (via @CSEASUCB)

Cross-posted from our companion site, Interpreting the Aid Review.

• With much discussion on the pros and cons of giving aid to Japan, this blog post deepens the debate about donating after a disaster.
• With emerging and new donors littering the international aid scene, the growth of China, Brazil and India changing the world's economic landscape, climate change, conflict and corruption potentially bringing on greater development fatigue, the rise of globetrotting celebrity campaigners, the onset of e-diplomacy and the push for greater donor transparency — what will aid look like in 2031? 
• News Limited took to Australia's aid program this week with a string of articles attacking the program for $3.4 million of fraud over a 7 year period (amounting to 0.17% 0.017% of the program's budget over this time). It was good to see this spark a dialogue on Australia's aid program. As an engaged follower, I am craving a more informed and deeper discussion than what has been rolled out by News Limited papers so far.
• A useful blog for Australia's international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) – 10 pointers for meeting the challenges presented by a changing global context. 

• Iran is an aid donor? Apparently Iran provides loans and export credits, predominantly to countries in their own region, but is increasingly involved in Africa. As a donor, it seems Iran is still finding its way.

Cross-posted from Interpreting the Aid Review.

In January, with support from the Myer Foundation and AusAID, the Lowy Institute launched a new aid blog — 'Interpreting the Aid Review'.

Since its launch, Interpreting the Aid Review has been blogging daily alongside The Interpreter (the Lowy Institute's prolific and internationally regarded foreign policy blog). With the aid review set to conclude in early April, so too will this dedicated Australian-based aid & development blog.

With one month to go, we hope even more individuals and organisations will reach out and contribute to this unique discussion on the future of Australia's aid program (the budget of which is set to double to $8-9 billion by 2015-16). 2011 has already proved a rather fascinating time for development assistance worldwide and this has been reflected in a range of blog posts published on the Lowy aid blog...Read the rest of this post here.

Cross-posted from our companion blog, Interpreting the Aid Review.

• This week, the Guardian's Global Development section covers UK aid to India, uprisings in the Middle East, unemployment in South Africa and the World Social Forum.
• What will Millennium Development Goals 2.0 look like?
• Poverty, inequality and revolution? Who's next, and what do they all have in common?
• World Vision USA responds to development bloggers around the world who have criticised its decision to distribute 100,000 misprinted NFL t-shirts to developing countries in Africa.
• Can the global fund restore its reputation as the best and cleanest in the aid business? (thanks Don.)
• A social network for the development sector? Launched in December 2010 by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, Jumo aims to connect people with NGOs and development projects, and provide users with news and updates from the 'social sector'. This video will shed more light (Chris is quizzed on a range of topics including his role in Obama's social media campaign, his view on Facebook going public [he retains a 1% share], and politicians hitting twitter): 

Cross-posted from our companion blog, Interpreting the Aid Review.

• An interesting Guardian Focus podcast on land grabs in Africa, coupled with a Guardian blog post analysing the buy-up of millions of hectares of farmland across Africa. 
• Five myths about microcredit, found here, at the Atlantic. Myth 1: Microcredit is a proven path out of poverty.
• I didn't think it was possible to match the drama caused by the saga that was Jason Sadler and his 1MillionShirts to Africa (Interpreter coverage here). Apparently World Vision USA is giving it a good go. World Vision USA and the NFL (American football league) are partnering to send 100,000 misprinted NFL shirts to developing countries across Africa. Follow the controversy as development bloggers unleash their disapproval here and here.
• UPDATE: Reader Stuart lets us know that Freakonomics has a great discussion on the T-shirt issue. 

  

• Tony Abbott's statement that 'charity begins at home', in relation to his proposed cuts to Australia's aid program, produced a flurry of commentary (here and here on this blog). This ABC panel provides a good summary and discussion of the debate thus far.
• Does the public care about development? Owen Barder authors an excellent blog post that contains more than a few scenarios applicable to the current discussion surrounding Australia's aid program.

• The BBC World Service (The Forum) interviews former World Bank economist Dambisa Moyo on how to reverse the decline of the West; podcast here.
• The murder of Uganda's renowned gay right activist, David Kato, has sparked calls for the US to stop funding faith-based organisations in Africa.
• Foreign Policy magazine's Paul Miller asks the all-important question – what is foreign aid for?
• Last week, South Africa announced plans to establish its own foreign aid agency in 2011. Interesting blog discussions have emerged on The Guardian, UN Dispatch and Foreign Policy magazine on the rise of new donor countries, particularly in the south.
• On 19 January, USAID Administrator Dr Rajiv Shah delivered a powerful speech entitled 'The Modern Development Enterprise, at an event hosted by the Center for Global Development (a development think tank in Washington). Shah was very frank and came out with some rather extraordinary lines, one of the best being:

In many instances our project evaluations have been commissioned by the same organisations that implement them. Often what passes for evaluation follows a 2-2-2 model: two contractors spending two weeks abroad conducting two-dozen interviews. For about $30,000 they produce a report no one needs and no one reads.

A reader has a question about my post of yesterday, in which I announced a new Lowy Institute blog, 'Interpreting the Aid Review', to be launched next week:

You say below that AusAID 'co-funds' the forum, and infer that submissions will be vetted. This does not appear to welcome what may be viewed by the co-funder as controversial or oppositional. Am I misinterpreting? I think a few word of clarification could be useful to address  censorship!

Thanks for writing in, and let me clarify. As with the Lowy Institute and The Interpreter, the editorial stance of 'Interpreting the Aid Review' will be independent, non-partisan and directed towards informing and deepening the debate about development and Australia's aid program.

Just as with The Interpreter, we do not want to host potentially defamatory or offensive material, and we would like to keep the quality of writing and debate at a high standard. We want to ensure that 'Interpreting the Aid Review' maintains the reputation that The Interpreter has developed over a long period of time. The Interpreter has always hosted robust debate on Australian foreign policy, including on the aid program. 'Interpreting the Aid Review' will be no different.

The stance taken by a blogger on any particular issue will not impact on their chance of getting their post published; we strongly encourage a wide variety of views. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pieces that are controversial or oppositional. In fact, often such pieces are advantageous in that they spark important debates.

If we don't receive submissions from a wide variety of individuals and organisations that contain different, interesting and well-expressed views on Australia's aid program, then we could suffer the worst fate possible in the blog world – being boring.

On 12 January, the Lowy Institute will launch a new blog — 'Interpreting the Aid Review'. We hope Interpreter readers will click across to read the latest on what Australia's aid program should look like and what issues the aid review team should focus on. If you want to influence the discussion on Australia's aid policy, we encourage you to take advantage of this unique opportunity and submit a post to be considered for publication.

The Australian Government has established an independent panel to undertake a review on the future direction of Australia's aid program. The review started in November 2010 and is due to be completed by April of this year. The aid program is undergoing some must-be-discussed changes, the headline grabbing element being that the aid budget is set to double from $4.3 billion to $8-9 billion by 2015-16. This means the aid budget will reach 0.5% of Australia's Gross National Income by 2015-16, an increase that currently enjoys bipartisan support.

It is important to dwell on 'currently', as no promise is concrete in politics. It is likely that the aid program will reach this $8-9 billion figure, but a stream of bad press could weaken this stance by a number of political parties.

Other big changes in Australia's aid policy include a big shift in geographical disbursement – more aid to Africa and expanding the aid program to Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, there has been increasing discussion concerning the policy guiding the doubling of the aid program, with greater media attention than ever before on the 'how', 'where' and 'why'.

I would like to see the geographical direction of Australia's aid program heavily debated. I am increasingly confused as to why Australian aid is being channeled far beyond the Asia Pacific towards Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Latin America and the Caribbean. It is difficult not to assume that there are other forces at play besides development and poverty alleviation. I hope this will be one of many issues tackled on 'Interpreting the Aid Review' and I am certainly open to taking in other points of view and changing my mind.

• A great blog post linking together corruption, cooperation and size of governments in developing countries. (via @chrisberg, Institute of Public Affairs.)
• Is vertical farming going to transform the way cities feed themselves? While it sounds like a sustainable path to food security in large crowded cities, the comments below this Economist article are hugely sceptical. One mathematical guru points out that, in order to feed New York City, 70,000 'Empire State building sized' vertical farms would have to be constructed at a cost of approximately $4.3 billion. 
• Every time I look at the Gapminder 2010 map, which logs life expectancy at birth vs. GDP per person, I learn something new. I was struck by the divergence of results from countries of the Asia Pacific. Having recently spent some time in Bolivia I was shocked to see the poorest country in Latin America performing better than many of our nearest neighbours.
• Sam recently featured a presentation by Gapminder founder Hans Rosling about global income inequality. One blogger says the video is seriously misleading.
• New Zealand's Parliament has published a report on Pacific Island relations that admits Wellington's aid efforts have yielded 'disappointing results'. Some of the main recommendations of the report, which doesn't seem to be online, are listed here.
• The US State Department, in conjunction with USAID, has finally released 'The First Quadrennial Diplomacy & Development Review: Leading through Civilian Power'. The executive summary starts with, 'somewhere in the world today, a jeep winds its way through a remote region of a developing country', and proceeds to tell a story that seeks to explain how development fits into US foreign policy. Hillary Clinton says in her introduction that the US is 're-establishing USAID as the world's premier agency'.

• Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's recently announced 'Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness' for Australia’s aid program has been welcomed by many.  All eyes will be on the progress and outcomes of this review and there will be even bigger expectations for how the findings will be implemented. 
• William Easterly has a great piece in the New York Review of Books 'Foreign Aid for Scoundrels' (thanks Raoul).
• A fresh look at cash–transfer programs by Newsweek? There seems to be proven success in middle-–income countries, however, little evidence the same could be said for low–income countries (thanks Ms Higgins).
• Correction on my last linkage; Australia in fact ranks equal 11th alongside the United States and Austria in the Commitment to Development Index undertaken by the Center for Global Development (CGDEV) in Washington. Thanks to Julie from the CGDEV for pointing this out.
• A micro–finance crisis is brewing in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. I won't pretend to understand the finite details of this crisis, however, these articles (listed from most recent) will provide an interesting insight: two from The Economist, Reuters, David Roodman's (CGDEV) microfinance open book blog, The New York Times, and The Economic Times.

• It seems Obama impressed many on his recent visit to India; of particular interest was his focus on global development and the importance of country ownership.

• If you had $1 million to spend on tackling climate change, how would you get the best bang for your buck? According to some, the money would be best spent on a combination of family planning and girls' education in developing countries (thanks Kate Higgins).

• New Zealand's Aid program has been going through some serious changes over the past two years; this blog post runs through some of the trends occurring in New Zealand's aid giving. New Zealand rates very well in the recently–released 2010 Commitment to Development Index which ranks developed countries on how much they are helping developing countries, measured across seven categories: aid, trade, investment, migration, environment, security and technology. NZ ranks fifth behind the usual Scandinavian/Nordic front–runners, performing considerably better than Australia (13th), Canada (9th), the US (11th), the UK (16th), and Japan (21st).

• UNICEF has released its mid-term review reports on the Pacific Islands region. An interesting situational analysis of Pacific Children with Disabilities is included, as well as an important report on children and climate change in the region.

• This is a gem. The World Bank and the OECD have partnered to make global data on aid funding more accessible and transparent. The AidFlows website provides fast access to nicely–packaged information about the volume and structure of aid funding made available by donor countries. It offers the same information for aid beneficiary countries. The sections dedicated to 'civil society' and 'news media' need some attention, but the website has great potential to become a hub for those interested in accessing the most up–to–date development data.

Monitoring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s current Asia-Pacific trip online has led me to a surprising and refreshing discovery — Hillary is the ultimate online diplomat.

Hillary and the State Department proactively engage the international community in ways the Australian Government could only dream of (as a forthcoming Lowy Institute publication on e-diplomacy will lay out). I realised seconds into a google search that in fact I won't need to chase down Hillary Clinton, it’s almost as if, Hillary is chasing me.

Hillary and her team twitter, facebook, blog, (share photos through) flickr and youtube their way around the world with precision and transparency. Hillary's online presence is articulate, accessible and clear-cut. And I, as one member of our 6.9 billion international community, have an all–access pass.

If there is bureaucratic interference from Capital Hill this red tape is cut through with haste. Large amounts of diverse and surprisingly interesting content is online within 24 hours.

Information about her current Asia-Pacific trip has been downloaded to her website and onto her blog immediately. Want to know how the US embassy in New Zealand has planned for her arrival read about it here. Interested in her trip to Malaysia, watch some of it here. Want to know how Hillary filled her four hours in Papua New Guinea, her staff have blogged on it here. Have opinions on how the US should enhance their Pacific engagement? Good, because the US government wants to know and asks that you share your thoughts here.

While Australia's media keeps its eyes on the prize — Hillary Clinton's pending visit to Australia — there are those, albeit a small few, who are more interested in Hilary's fly-by into the Pacific Islands, and what this means for US engagement, or lack thereof, in the region.

Papua New Guinea was the Pacific Island destination chosen for Hillary's pit-stop, and although the visit was an embarrassingly short four hours, making this stop-over in the region is an important gesture.

As my colleague Jenny Hayward-Jones wrote the US has, for some years now, talked up greater engagement, re-engagement, and enhanced engagement in the Pacific. Americans like to talk, unfortunately however, little of this ever translated into real action for the Pacific Islands.

Even when the US anointed 2007 as the ‘Year of the Pacific’ the resulting inactivity was on par with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s chairing of the Pacific Island Forum in 2009 — simply a lot of nothing and then some.

• The New York Times magazine discusses the DIY foreign aid revolution. Responses were fast and thick, from the open-minded to the sceptical and the adverse. I think this blogger has captured the bigger picture.
• The recently established Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University will be publishing the first installment of its Aid Open Paper on 1 November. The paper will take the form of a series of blog posts debating the direction of Australia's aid program. Despite Australia's massive scale-up of the aid budget, this area of policy is starved of research and public discussion, and the Development Policy Centre is a welcome addition. You can contribute to the discussion on the centre's blog.
• Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd (still maintaining his PM status online), delivered a speech last week to the Australian Council for International Development on the 'Importance of Aid Effectiveness'. The speech outlined five basic principles that guide the delivery of Australia's aid program. Archie Law, CEO of ActionAID, blogs on what was missing: human rights and Q&A.
• The Gates Foundation and Coca-Cola: Melinda Gates (below) looks at what development can learn from the private sector. But as discussed by this blogger, one organisation has the ability to reach a worldwide audience, while the other doesn't.

• What does the doubling of Australia's aid program mean for the Pacific? Is a short-and-sharp review of Australia's aid strategy needed to guide the way? This and more discussed here.
• Andrew Hewett (Oxfam), Stephen Howes (ANU) and Robin Davies (AusAID) took part in last week's Lowy Institute panel discussion that analysed the decisions underpinning the doubling of Australia's aid program and what Australia should be focused on following the recent UN MDG summit in New York. This video recording of the panel is well worth watching.
• Islamist group al-Shabab has banned mobile phone money transfers in Somali. Mobile phone banking is used by hundreds of thousands of Somalis abroad to remit earnings to relatives, and is one of the country’s main sources of income, estimated at US$1 billion a year.
• Data guru Hans Rosling shows that Sweden is off-track on the Millennium Development Goals.
• The Australian National University's new development policy blog looks at the UK's ten-point plan for better aid.

• India emerges as an aid donor, yet according to the 2010 Global Hunger Rankings, India is ranked below Sudan, Pakistan and North Korea.
• Craig Wilson, Executive Director of the Foundation for Development Cooperation, writes that Australia needs a dedicated Parliamentary Secretary for Aid. It is unclear whether Foreign Minister Rudd will be able to handle his additional role as Super Aid Minister. To lighten the multi-billion dollar load, Rudd has recruited a young former TV journalist as his new foreign aid advisor.
• Continuing their reform agenda, USAID has launched a Department of Innovation. This press release says ideas will be sought from inside and outside USAID and, borrowing from the private venture capital model, USAID will be looking to invest resources in high-risk, high-return projects. More detail here.
• Princeton Ethics Professor Peter Singer holds developed countries accountable for failing to match their words with adequate action in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
• The Gates Foundation has given a $1.5 million grant to US TV station ABC to conduct a year-long report on global health, with ABC contributing $4.5 million of its own money. This has raised questions as to why the Gates Foundation is increasingly giving money to journalists. This development blog delves into further analysis, and links to a must-see 60 Minutes segment on the Gates Foundation. 
• The Guardian has been ranked the top media outlet for social media engagement, beating out heavy hitters BBC, CNN, Fox News and the Washington Post. This is good news for the Guardian's recently launched global development section, also Gates Foundation initiative.

• The grumbles of Pacific Island NGOs are getting louder as a shift in New Zealand's aid policies sees a greater focus on economic development projects with funding cuts to civil society groups across the region. It seems NZAid's preference is that more money be channeled through New Zealand-based NGOs to provide services. AusAID has provided emergency funding to keep some Pacific Islands NGOs running until the end of the year.
• This blog post asks what aid should be focused on: poor people or poor countries? 
• The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has launched the 2010 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, with significant gains recorded by countries such as Liberia and Ghana. Others have regressed, including Guinea and Madagascar. And for the second year in a row, the Foundation has refused to award a $5 million prize for excellence in African leadership, saying they could not find a proper candidate. 
• The One World Trust, which aims to make global governance more accountable, launches an online accountability database for organisations conducting policy-relevant research. The database takes into account that research organisations are no longer just universities, but private companies, public institutes and non-profit think-tanks.
• The Guardian asks whether digital activism is an effective medium for change. Digital and social media has certainly made waves in international diplomacy, but it seems Australia is far behind (although there is the odd glimmer of hope).

• The Guardian has launched a new website in partnership with the Gates Foundation to focus attention on global development. The aim is to create a global hub for information, debate and action by promoting long-term development stories and funneling data, bloggers and readers towards one website. A fantastic initiative that should be replicated down south.
• How does foreign aid affect armed conflict? This blog post analyses a recent paper which concludes that sudden and severe drops in foreign aid significantly increase the probability of violent conflict and even civil wars.
• An interesting article on Samasource, an NGO which distributes IT work from large multinationals such as Google to workers in developing countries. And a response from a blogger sceptical of the initiative.
• A heated and entertaining debate between John McArthur, CEO of Millennium Promise, and William Easterly, co-editor of the Aid Watch blog, on the Millennium Development Goals and the accountability of regional organisations such as the World Bank.
• And finally, what we have learned from the all this Millennium Development Goal talk? Among other things listed in this blog post, that summits are necessary but announcements can be distracting.

Among the clutter of this year's conferences, reports, speeches and commitments, all muscling to feed into the discussion at this week's Millennium Development Goals (MDG) summit in New York, there is another more localised debate trying to bust out of obscurity. Where does Australia fit in to the MDG effort? Before we ask that question, it may be worth backtracking to ask, 'what are these MDGs?'

In short, they are a global action plan to reduce poverty, containing eight broad goals that tackle issues related to hunger, health, education and more in developing countries.

New Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is certainly well aware of the MDGs and is now in his element, visiting key allies and representing Australia at the pivotal MDG meeting in New York. Clearly, he is in charge; he is taking Australia's aid program to the international stage and he is doing it quickly. None of these are bad things; in fact, Rudd's ability to charm certain world leaders will only boost Australia's profile internationally, and with that, draw international attention to Australia's aid program. 

One glaringly obvious problem with all of this is that Rudd, and the Australian Government in general, is overestimating Australians' knowledge of and support for the mushrooming aid program, which is set to hit approximately $8-9 billion by 2015, making AusAID one of the largest Government departments. Rudd is off and running on the international stage, but without ensuring there is solid domestic support behind him.

• Oxfam Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs, keeping the spotlight on primary education, asks what the world would look like if every child had access to schooling. 
• Lawrence Haddad, Director of the Institute of Development Studies, writes a fascinating blog post about recent research on public attitudes towards aid spending and development. The report reveals that, while the UK general public believes development aid is morally right, they also think it should be cut to deal with the budget deficit.
• As private sector organisations continue to buy into microfinance institutions, it needs to be asked, is there any remaining role for donor funding? 
• How useful is social media to non-for-profit organisations? Apparently, very useful, but only if used and monitored correctly (via @Akhtar, Director of Community Affairs, Microsoft).

• Food riots in Mozambique have sparked a debate about their root cause. Some argue that a spike in food prices is not to blame, while others say the link is too obvious to ignore.
• Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has thrown Human Rights Watch a lengthy life-line: a $100 million donation. 
• Why does India give and receive aid? (Via @mattmorris.) 
• Should the Australian public be able to vote (over internet and text message) on aid projects? Should more money be given to projects with the most votes? This article tackles these questions in relation to the British Government's interesting attempts to engage the public.
• World Vision has scored Hugh Jackman as an ambassador for their See Solutions initiative. Jackman's recent op-ed will be followed by a documentary on Channel 9 (trailer below). His SMH article generated much debate on population growth in the comments thread, and led one reader to direct others to this video.

• Should there be indicators and limits for consumption in developed countries? The New York Times asks if the top billion need a set of Millennium Development Goals.
• Philanthropy in the US has hit new heights with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett claiming they have convinced forty US billionaires to donate at least 50% of their fortunes to charity. This 'Giving Pledge' effort looks to be going global and has the potential to be rolled out in China and India. It has been reported that Germany's rich have rejected the idea. 
• Oxfam argues that, with the deadline for reaching the MDGs and slashing poverty only five years away and with aid budgets under pressure from the global economic crisis, there is an urgent need for new sources of help, such as the 'Robin Hood Tax' on financial transactions. This video deserves a second airing to explain the concept.
• Not something you see every day – a conference to discuss failures in technology-related development projects.
• Last week I discussed the visualisation of aid using geo-coding. Geo-coding is already being applied to the humanitarian sector, with 47 organisations coordinating their aid projects in Haiti through this website, giving donors and recipients the ability to access information that shows who is doing what and where.

• Pakistan floods: the BBC outlines who is assisting Pakistan and with how much. Another analyst argues that Pakistan needs much more than international support. 
• Britain is tossing up whether to cut aid payments to corrupt regimes, including Sierra Leone. The article reveals that Britain's new coalition government sees aid agency DFID as being at the 'centre of national security'. 
• UK think tank Chatham House alerts the UK Government to the potential dangers of implementing a cash-on-delivery (COD) aid framework. COD, previously discussed here, ties aid payments to proven outcomes. This report warns such a system could weaken aid programs that are delivering real results by strengthening public services. 
• Sony, UNDP and Japan's aid agency, JICA, teamed up to give communities in Ghana and Cameroon access to watch the recent Soccer World Cup. Free HIV testing, counseling and HIV/AIDS education was offered at the same time. This short video explains the project. 
• This Wall Street Journal article, then a follow-up blog post, has forced a number of NGOs, including World Vision and Mercy Corps, to respond to mounting pressure on the issue of transparency. Follow the trail of debate from here.

Aid transparency and accountability will never be the same again, now that it is possible to 'geo-code' aid. AidData, Development Gateway and the World Bank have collaborated to establish a way to pinpoint and track the geographic coordinates of the actual locations where aid activities are taking place (the World Bank has tracked its activities in Africa and Latin America thus far). This musically enhanced video will explain all:

Apparently, this is easy and quick to do. No doubt, donors will be scrambling to get on board, though countries that heavily tie their aid to their security concerns will likely lag behind. But with aid budgets and aid activity locations increasingly available online and in great detail, it won't be difficult for another organisation to do the geo-coding for them. More opinion on this technological breakthrough can be found here.

• USAID Asia specialist Frank Young blogs a 2-part series on USAID's work in Timor-Leste. To read more of USAID's IMPACT blog, including posts by Administrator Rajiv Shah, start here.
• The Centre for Global Development has a paper addressing the question, 'How should oil exporters spend their rents?' It draws on the experience of a few successful countries, pointing to common factors that enable countries to obtain a payoff from resource wealth. Here's hoping the paper finds its way to Papua New Guinea, where debate continues on how earnings from PNG's US$15 billion LNG project should be managed.
• The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), which represents over 70 NGOs and civil-society organisations, calls on the next Australian Government to deliver 'better aid, more aid, just aid'.
• Will Iraq fall victim to the oil curse? This WSJ article takes a slight departure from my usual focus, but it's an interesting read as it reveals that one-fifth of the US foreign aid budget is now under control of the US military.
• The MobileActive blog, which aims to bring together a network of people using mobile technology for social impact, never ceases to amaze me. Whether it's looking at 'how mobile applications are shaking up East Africa', the banning of the Blackberry in Saudi Arabia, or a paper on government to people (G2P) payments using electronic payment mechanisms; if there is potential to use a mobile phone somewhere in the process, these communication technology gurus are discussing it.