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State, Society and Governance in Melanesia presents: Dr Peter McCawley Economics Division, RSPAS, CAP, ANU How should aid donors work in fragile states? Date: Thursday 14 August, 11.00—12.30pm Venue: Seminar Room B, Coombs Building, ANU Abstract Aid donors in recent years have been giving increasing attention to the special problems of promoting development in fragile states. This paper suggests, however, that donors have not yet given enough attention to one of the central features of working in fragile states – the extreme weakness of the institutions of government. The international donor community is used to working with governments in developing countries. When governments in fragile states, and the associated institutions, are extremely weak, it becomes difficult for donor institutions to operate effectively. Many of the assumptions which underpin usual donor activities – such as, for example, the expectation that it will be possible to work effectively with local official partner institutions, or that regulatory institutions function effectively – hardly apply. The paper argues that donors need to modify traditional approaches to aid programs with a view to simplifying all aspects of aid delivery. Simplification is needed in three sectors: the government sector, the private sector, and the informal economy. Peter McCawley is is currently a Visiting Fellow in the Arndt-Corden Division of Economics in RSPAS. He has a PhD in economics from the ANU (1972). He was later Head of the ANU Indonesia Project before joining AusAID as a Deputy Director General in 1986. In 1992 he became an Executive Director at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) representing Australia and several other countries including five small fragile states from the Pacific (Solomon Is., Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, and FSM). More recently, he was Dean of the ADB Institute in Tokyo (2003-2007). He has also chaired three of the ADB's international negotiation rounds with donors in support of the ADB's soft-loan operations where issues of aid delivery to fragile states were discussed in detail. ALL WELCOME |
| Date: | Thursday, August 14, 2008 |
| Time: | 11:00am-12:30pm |
| Duration: | 90 minutes |
| Priority: | Medium |
| Access: | Public |
| Created by: | Default Administrator |
| Updated: | Tuesday, August 12, 2008 11:13am |