The blog monitor (Hannah) has edited my original blog (on the basis of excessive length and bad language) and I have been limited to saying the following:
As you know we are both working on issues of institutional development and better working practices. Just for interest I thought I’d name the institution that has proved to be the most time consuming and frustrating to deal with since we have been here – the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the UK – as they say here, it is cranki.
Anyway, on a more positive note there is a man currently mending the air conditioning unit in my office which will hopefully mean that I now don't leave work two stone lighter than I went in. Although saying that as I am typing he has just stuck a screwdriver into the machine and a large spark has come out. It doesn't appear to have done any harm, although this has happened twice since I arrived and I am thinking I might wear thick soled rubber shoes to work in future.
I spoke too soon and I'm glad this isn't coming to you live as I would have lost you for a bit there. The spark it appears did somehow manage to fix the air-conditioning but also managed to shut down my computer for a short spell. Anyway all appears well now: i have a computer and i am cool (words which I think I also said in 1982 with the arrival of a Spectrum 48k) - what a relief.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Thursday, 25 October 2007
scramble for vanuatu
This week I went with the director of the NGO I’m working for to see AUSAID (the Australian version of DFID) to ask them to fund the leadership project I’m working on …they should let us know next week.
Despite the pretty ropey state of many of the NGOs in Vanuatu (in terms of leadership, staff capacity and organization, financial planning etc) funding is actually not hard to come by. There’s something of a scramble for the south pacific going on which has presumably been going for ages but doesn’t make the news much in the UK. Ausaid and NZ aid are major donors and have been for years; the UK (DFID) pulled out much of its funding and rationalized its embassies in the south pacific some years ago although the EU is still much in evidence. But increasingly China is throwing money at the region (as it is in Africa) and unlike the Ausaid, NZ Aid, EU approach which is heavily bound up with bureaucratic processes attempting to ensure accountability and funding to achieve “good governance” the Chinese money comes with no strings attached.
In recent years the Chinese have built the parliament building, the Department and Ministry for Foreign Affairs (where John works) and a large workforce of Chinese labourers are currently building the head office of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (another regional economic trade and development grouping) – while hundreds of unemployed Ni-vans wander around with no work. One of the examples of the quid pro quo is that a Chinese company is building a large tuna processing plant just north of Vila threatening to pollute the beach and sea, damaging the tourist industry and the fish population (There is public opposition to the project which has apparently skipped the full environmental impact assessment stage of the planning process. Although it has to be said that the most vocal opposition comes from the ex-pats who have got large houses and fenced off bits of beach near the area in question.)
I hadn’t really thought about the strategic importance of little islands like Vanuatu before coming here but the approaches from the donor/ investor countries are enough to keep Vanuatu’s overstretched government ministers busy full time. And it’s hard to blame them for pretty much saying yes to everything that’s offered to them when they are unable to deliver the most basic services to their population. However this means strategic development doesn’t happen and rather than setting the agenda the government just says yes to the money on offer, so there’s a lot of overlap and a lot of gaps. At the moment the Vanuatu government has a firm ‘One China’ policy but this was interrupted some years ago when the government pillaged the country’s pension fund and Taiwan offered to plug the gap for a bit of recognition….
In the run up to the Australian election the parties there are jumping on the ‘war against terrorism’ band wagon and talking up the region’s potential for instability. Kevin Rudd the labor leader has even called it an axis of instability shamelessly echoing Bush and citing the violence and political unrest in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and the latest coup in Fiji. All in all the money coming into Vanuatu is pretty significant – an Ausaid report from 2006 claims that on a per person basis the pacific islands receive the most aid of any group in the world which is pretty extraordinary when you compare it to countries who are far more debilitated by war, famine, HIV etc and is also a pretty strong indictment of the failure of that investment to make an impact in Vanuatu…
Despite the pretty ropey state of many of the NGOs in Vanuatu (in terms of leadership, staff capacity and organization, financial planning etc) funding is actually not hard to come by. There’s something of a scramble for the south pacific going on which has presumably been going for ages but doesn’t make the news much in the UK. Ausaid and NZ aid are major donors and have been for years; the UK (DFID) pulled out much of its funding and rationalized its embassies in the south pacific some years ago although the EU is still much in evidence. But increasingly China is throwing money at the region (as it is in Africa) and unlike the Ausaid, NZ Aid, EU approach which is heavily bound up with bureaucratic processes attempting to ensure accountability and funding to achieve “good governance” the Chinese money comes with no strings attached.
In recent years the Chinese have built the parliament building, the Department and Ministry for Foreign Affairs (where John works) and a large workforce of Chinese labourers are currently building the head office of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (another regional economic trade and development grouping) – while hundreds of unemployed Ni-vans wander around with no work. One of the examples of the quid pro quo is that a Chinese company is building a large tuna processing plant just north of Vila threatening to pollute the beach and sea, damaging the tourist industry and the fish population (There is public opposition to the project which has apparently skipped the full environmental impact assessment stage of the planning process. Although it has to be said that the most vocal opposition comes from the ex-pats who have got large houses and fenced off bits of beach near the area in question.)
I hadn’t really thought about the strategic importance of little islands like Vanuatu before coming here but the approaches from the donor/ investor countries are enough to keep Vanuatu’s overstretched government ministers busy full time. And it’s hard to blame them for pretty much saying yes to everything that’s offered to them when they are unable to deliver the most basic services to their population. However this means strategic development doesn’t happen and rather than setting the agenda the government just says yes to the money on offer, so there’s a lot of overlap and a lot of gaps. At the moment the Vanuatu government has a firm ‘One China’ policy but this was interrupted some years ago when the government pillaged the country’s pension fund and Taiwan offered to plug the gap for a bit of recognition….
In the run up to the Australian election the parties there are jumping on the ‘war against terrorism’ band wagon and talking up the region’s potential for instability. Kevin Rudd the labor leader has even called it an axis of instability shamelessly echoing Bush and citing the violence and political unrest in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and the latest coup in Fiji. All in all the money coming into Vanuatu is pretty significant – an Ausaid report from 2006 claims that on a per person basis the pacific islands receive the most aid of any group in the world which is pretty extraordinary when you compare it to countries who are far more debilitated by war, famine, HIV etc and is also a pretty strong indictment of the failure of that investment to make an impact in Vanuatu…
Monday, 15 October 2007
Bildimap olgeta woman blong lidas
At the moment I am working with a women’s group on a leadership project, helping them to develop a strategy (developing a training course, getting proper support from political parties and government etc) to increase the number of women in leadership positions. Depending on which way you look at it its either a hugely challenging project or one with enormous potential… currently there is one woman on one of the two municipal councils, no women on the 6 provincial councils and 2 female MPs out of 52 in parliament, and an unknown (but likely to be small) number on village councils and clearly no women on the council of chiefs. The project was meant to begin in April of this year in order to have some influence on the expected June/July 2008 general election. Unfortunately due to funding problems and lack of staff within the organisation I am working with the project has slipped a bit....
As most of the dozen or so (!) political parties have already confirmed their candidates the project is unlikely to have an impact on an election that will probably happen in 8 months time so I think the focus will be more on building up women to stand for local and provincial elections. As its a long term issue its clearly valuable to try and start something as soon as possible anyway. The familiar attitude towards women was summed up rather nicely by the chair of the malvataumauri (council of chiefs) a few years ago when Vanuatu signed up to CEDAW (UN convention on the elimination of discrimination towards women- the primary international treaty on women’s rights) when he warned women “not to take CEDAW to start thinking highly of themselves and forgetting their place in society,”….not sure if anyone mentioned that he may have missed the point.
As most of the dozen or so (!) political parties have already confirmed their candidates the project is unlikely to have an impact on an election that will probably happen in 8 months time so I think the focus will be more on building up women to stand for local and provincial elections. As its a long term issue its clearly valuable to try and start something as soon as possible anyway. The familiar attitude towards women was summed up rather nicely by the chair of the malvataumauri (council of chiefs) a few years ago when Vanuatu signed up to CEDAW (UN convention on the elimination of discrimination towards women- the primary international treaty on women’s rights) when he warned women “not to take CEDAW to start thinking highly of themselves and forgetting their place in society,”….not sure if anyone mentioned that he may have missed the point.
Monday, 8 October 2007
a day trip to parliament
Well after the excitement of Tanna it has been back to the relative calm of everyday working life in Vila. Last week I had an outing to parliament as I was invited to a presentation ceremony there. It is a very nice new building (courtesy of the Chinese) that has a fantastic view over the bay. The event was the presentation of the consolidated laws of Vanuatu, which was something that a former VSO volunteer had been involved in. Most of the great and the good were present which gave me an excellent opportunity to meet both the prime minister and the president.
As with a lot of things in Vanuatu, ceremony is very important. This is particularly true when it comes to meetings and public speaking. There is always a prayer before any meal or meeting and when it comes to speeches the etiquette, as far as I can work out, is to acknowledge pretty much everyone who is in the room, then give the contents of the speech and then acknowledge everyone else all over again. As you can imagine this can make for quite a long speech and, in the event that there are a number of speeches, quite a long event – but quite a good game of Guess Who?
So, the meeting started with a speech from the Attorney General:
“Mr President mo mises” (and your wife)
“Mr Prime Minister mo mises” (and your wife)
“Mr Speaker of the House” (he didn’t appear to have a wife)
And so it went on – fortunately, of the 150 people invited only about 60 turned up. Eventually the Attorney General handed over to the Minister of Justice (who is also his brother and looks very similar) and the whole thing was repeated. The president also gave a speech and by the end I felt I knew everyone.
Amazingly for this event and for events in general in Vanuatu, it finished before the scheduled close, and so we had an interesting hour where we all stood outside waiting for the food to arrive: never a more appropriate time to wander up to the two most important people in the country and have a quick chat. Whether they understood what I was saying in my broken bislama – which I guess you could probably call pigeon pigeon – I will never know, but they both smiled nicely and nodded and said welcome (mo mises).
As with a lot of things in Vanuatu, ceremony is very important. This is particularly true when it comes to meetings and public speaking. There is always a prayer before any meal or meeting and when it comes to speeches the etiquette, as far as I can work out, is to acknowledge pretty much everyone who is in the room, then give the contents of the speech and then acknowledge everyone else all over again. As you can imagine this can make for quite a long speech and, in the event that there are a number of speeches, quite a long event – but quite a good game of Guess Who?
So, the meeting started with a speech from the Attorney General:
“Mr President mo mises” (and your wife)
“Mr Prime Minister mo mises” (and your wife)
“Mr Speaker of the House” (he didn’t appear to have a wife)
And so it went on – fortunately, of the 150 people invited only about 60 turned up. Eventually the Attorney General handed over to the Minister of Justice (who is also his brother and looks very similar) and the whole thing was repeated. The president also gave a speech and by the end I felt I knew everyone.
Amazingly for this event and for events in general in Vanuatu, it finished before the scheduled close, and so we had an interesting hour where we all stood outside waiting for the food to arrive: never a more appropriate time to wander up to the two most important people in the country and have a quick chat. Whether they understood what I was saying in my broken bislama – which I guess you could probably call pigeon pigeon – I will never know, but they both smiled nicely and nodded and said welcome (mo mises).
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