Aid & Development

This month, Timor-Leste is in a festive mood, celebrating the 20th anniversary of its independence referendum. On 30 August 1999, the people of Timor-Leste cast their ballots in a United Nations–administered popular consultation to determine the fate of the country, with 78.5% voting to separate

Car crash rates run high across the world, and often proportionally higher in developing countries. But a simple nudge can change this. In India, a firm is now using behavioural science to decrease the number of accidents on the roads.Why do parents invest in girls’ education? In this analysis

Rory Stewart, Britain’s international development secretary, announced the UK will have an “ethical” development policy focusing on climate emergency and environmental protection. It will consist of spending on low-carbon energy and projects to help developing countries adapt to the effects of

The UN has partially suspended its aid to parts of Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, accusing them of misappropriating supplies.Interesting piece by Richard E. Feinberg on Cuba, talking about how the weakening of two foundational pillars of the revolution – regional equality and social betterment

A group of adolescent girls in Solomon Islands huddle around a piece of butcher’s paper. They are considering their answers to a question put to them as part of a research project: What makes it so hard for girls and young women in Solomon Islands to finish high school? The spur for the research

Devex reporter Lisa Cornish looks at how the Australian election result will affect the aid sector.Alwyn Chilver compares two schools of thought to escape poverty: market systems and social protection. He explains how Palladium International succeeded in taking the best of both approaches.Amr Darrag

China has renegotiated US $50 billion in loans to developing countries in recent year, according to the findings of a new study, countering the talk of debt-trap diplomacy that surrounds Beijing’s loan activity.Good news! We might have found a vaccine against malaria, one of the world deadliest

Book Review: Utopia For Realists, And How We Can Get There, by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, 2017) Rutger Bregman shot to public fame calling out billionaires at this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. “1500 private jets flying in here to hear Sir David Attenborough speak about

“Foreign policy alignment” was the political “abracadabra” used to explain how the late 2013 integration of what was then AusAID into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would deliver better outcomes. DFAT would have direct control over Australian aid and by virtue of that,

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Mergerplomacy Five years after the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) swallowed AusAID in the first major spending cuts of the new Coalition Government, two contradictory trends seem to be emerging. The reality of the takeover is getting some grudging acceptance in the

The aid industry is complex. Dozens of bilateral donors, hundreds of multilateral agencies, and thousands of non-governmental organisations litter the development landscape in all corners of the globe. In aid jargon, this is known as “fragmentation”. Conventional aid-effectiveness literature

Chris Hoy and Franziska Mager conduct the first cross-country survey experiment on preferences for redistribution in the developing world and find that poor people are not as in favour of greater redistribution as what you might expect. Simon Murphy interviews Salma, a worker in a&

Mark Cutts, UN Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, warns the killing of an aid worker last week in Syria brings into focus the daily risks faced by humanitarians working in conflict zones. Figures from 2018 on aid worker security show that Syria is the most dangerous

In Australia, Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong announced that a future Labor government will lift foreign aid every year. Caelin Briggs comments on the donor fatigue impacting the Democratic Republic of the Congo and explains what the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Is driving based on a ride-sharing app good work? In the piece, Julie Zollmann and Amolo Ng’weno analyse the impact of the market fight between Uber and Taxify in Africa, and how it impacts directly the livelihood of drivers. Nudge units (techniques to steer people towards making beneficial

In the biggest reform of US foreign aid policy in recent history, the US Senate this month passed the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development, or the BUILD Act. This legislation, signed into law by President Donald Trump on 5 October, will create the new US International

The report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explained why the world has just over a decade to get global warming under control. Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis discuss the implications of the research. The full impact of the tsunami in Central Sulawesi is still unknown,

In New York, Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdoğan says humanitarian aid policies should not increase the dependency of the recipients, but should focus on development. Lisa Cornish from Devex analyses the impact of the new government on Australia's aid and development program. This month

The Australian aid program has always laboured under multiple and competing objectives, both implicit and explicit. This was identified in the 1997 Simons Report on foreign aid, commissioned by the Howard Government, into what was then a separate agency, AusAID: The managers of the aid

Following Julie Bishop’s resignation as Australian foreign minister after five years in the job, Stephen Howes reflects on her aid and development legacy, which is only saved by the growth of the Seasonal Workers Program. Ashlee Betteridge and Lisa Cornish separately

Samuel Oakford comments on the new rule applied by the Trump administration on money spent by USAid through the UN and other multinational agencies. The measure could negatively impact a quarter of all US foreign assistance. The Australian picked up Jonathan Pryke’s recent submission to the

This article is based on episode 9 of the Good Will Hunters podcast with Giles Gunesekera, CEO of the Global Impact Initiative. In March 2015, the Coalition committed $140 million over four years to an innovation hub within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The hub, known as