Description: This discussion paper documents the socio-economic status of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville and the extent of rebound in investment and access to services since the cessation of conflict there in 1997. Data on the level of income, the age profile of the population, the level of access to basic services, and levels of...

Interest in answers to questions on who receives Australian aid and why are timely given the announcement by the government of its intentions to double the total Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget by 2015‐16. The Australian government has announced its intention to allocate 0.5 percent of gross national income (GNI) by 2015‐16 to ODA (AusAID...

Improving access to land in the Pacific remains a difficult problem. This paper presents results from a field survey conducted in 12 randomly selected settlements in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, to investigate how settlers acquire land for housing. The analysis shows that several means for land acquisition is used; ranging from...

This brief is on the theme of corruption and anticorruption— a timely topic given the recent headlines over the AWB payments in Iraq. It provides three perspectives: a diagnosis of the causes and cures for corruption, an economic analysis of corruption and the links between democracy and corruption. The articles included are: Democracy and political...