Only slightly below Kenya.

Worried about problems such as violence, cheating and a poor roll in the 2027 elections in PNG? You should be. And everyone should have been the day after the last election. That was the time to do something. My most recent post on Devpolicy: devpolicy.org/png-election... @amitam.bsky.social

Yikes

Note to self - this looks like a great Geocoded aid dataset godad.uni-goettingen.de/data/

Great takedown by aid @charlesjkenny.bsky.social of an awful Washington Post editorial on US aid cuts: www.cgdev.org/blog/washing...

I had other things I wanted to do today but someone had to do it: A paragraph-by-paragraph takedown of why basically everything in this op-ed is wrong. Kind of shocking how rudimentary the Editorial Board's errors are here (starting with using "messy" to refer to hundreds of thousands of deaths)

The instant obliteration of our congressionally mandated development assistance agency—by the world’s richest man and his cabal who “gave zero fucks” (Musk’s exact words) about the mass deaths they caused—is a historic atrocity that should stain everyone who touched it, forever.

Excellent analysis. No winners, but if the war stopped now there would be far fewer losers.

Snorkeling in Iron Bottom sound. I hope the Middle East looks like this one day. open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

Thought on governance while staying in a third world city: it's amazing how much has to work for anything to work.

More evidence that the Trump/Musk aid cuts increased conflict. www.researchgate.net/profile/Jimm...

How to Criminalize Poverty in PNG

Of course no one from *checks notes* Sudan or Afghanistan could be in genuine danger.

Aid cuts, inflation, illegal war - I explain why this is going to be a perfect, deadly storm for foreign aid: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

What can you do to predict election outcomes in Papua New Guinea where polling is impossible? On Devpolicy Maho Laveil and I build on a relationship discovered in the 1980s to try. The outcome in imperfect but certainly better than nothing @amitam.bsky.social: devpolicy.org/candidate-nu...

Stats NZ has handy NZ poverty data. 3 three poverty lines. Anchored relative line, relative line (both based off 50% median) and an "absolute" needs based line. Good Stata practice. Now I'm tying to infer respective effects of growth, inflation, and intervention from movement of lines. (1/3)

Very interesting from the Development Engagement Lab on trends in public support for aid in the US and several European countries: sdg-communicator.org/2026/02/03/w... Quite different from Australia.

Good from Anatol Lieven on the changing nature of war: responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war-...

New blog: Millions Lost Access to PEPFAR-Supported HIV Drugs During the US Foreign Assistance Pause The US State Department has collected data on the performance of PEPFAR in 2025, but is yet to officially release it. But some data has become available...

An indictment of UK Labour. Quite possibly their aid cuts will be more dramatic than coming US ones. Shameful: www.cgdev.org/blog/uk-aid-...

New Blog for CGD: US Aid Cuts Fueled Conflict in Africa www.cgdev.org/blog/us-aid-...

Interesting new NBER paper on the negative life expectancy impacts of NAFTA: www.nber.org/system/files...

Interesting heresy on how to reduce housing costs: eduardoelreportero.substack.com/p/how-not-to...

More affluent countries are better governed on average. Which makes this all the more puzzling. From: www.gallup.com/analytics/70...

Economists have debated whether aid works of not for years. All of a sudden, with the World's richest man & the World's most powerful man, gutting US aid, the question of whether aid works or not is an urgent one. Does aid work? I try and answer this: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

note to self. Inequality data in NZ: www.inequality.org.nz/understand/w...

The UK government is thinking about dismantling the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. Why? Do they actually want their aid to help fewer people? @leecrawfurd.bsky.social & Andrew Mitchell make the case for saving the ICAI: www.cgdev.org/blog/dont-sc...

Useful from @cgdev.org on problems with poverty measures: www.cgdev.org/blog/what-do...

From @cgdev.org interesting interviews with aid "agency" staff including MFAT. Warning small samples. But WRT to MFAT, who generally thought they were wonderful, surprise surprise...

New Blog: Congress: Please Help Restore Lifesaving Data Systems The US Congress has restored considerable global health and humanitarian finance. But it needs to ensure the data is available to use it effectively and monitor delivery. (1/n)...

So now we can see the official report of what happened to PEPFAR coverage in 2025 compared to 2024. 14.5m fewer people received testing and counselling (leading to a 400k drop in positive tests) 100,000 fewer on ARVs 1.6m drop in ART patients with documented viral load

New Zealand's Foreign Minister is a try hard Trumpest. He's only chasing votes. But his thirst for power will hurt the real world: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

Our health care system is collapsing. Housing is unaffordable. 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Instead of trying to "run" Venezuela, Trump might try to do a better job running the United States.

Six reasons why Trump’s attack on Venezuela was very wrong:

This on deservedness and economic outcomes from @mattbruenig.bsky.social is great. But I'm surprised - given the importance of nature, nurture, chance & whether we have free will all - that anyone ever tries to make the cased for desert based theories of justice. mattbruenig.com/2025/10/03/d...

After a long decline people are starting to donate more to Australian aid NGOs. devpolicy.org/the-fall-and... @amitam.bsky.social

Trump administration happy to lob insanely expensive missiles into Nigeria to little effect. Trump administration equally happy to cut inexpensive, effective peace-building aid project next door in Benin. Great article from @timhirschelburns.bsky.social timhirschelburns.substack.com/p/trump-bomb...

Earlier estimates suggested USAID program cancellations could lead to up to 700,000 additional deaths annually. New analysis by @charlesjkenny.bsky.social and @justsand.bsky.social finds the toll could reach 1 million now and 1.6 million with future cuts. Learn more: https://go.cgdev.org/4s0Z8w7

Useful from CDG, costs and tradeoffs of increased defence spending. Depressing that, at the end of the day, there's always more money for guns, and never enough for aid. www.cgdev.org/blog/peace-d...

Everything's dating fast but this from @markleongoldberg.bsky.social & Elizabeth Dickinson is the best analysis I've hear of the Venezuela crisis and the challenges of governing the country now: www.globaldispatches.org/p/the-us-jus...

Good analysis of what's happened to US aid, and what the consequences have been: carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

Economic development has its sceptics, in this article I look into the case for and against: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

Trump administration sacks several US ambassadors in Pacific countries: www.rnz.co.nz/internationa...

A grim update on the number of lives potentially lost thanks to US aid cuts from @cgdev.org: www.cgdev.org/blog/update-...

This is spot on from @charlesjkenny.bsky.social. "Aid isn't fairy dust", what it should and shouldn't be focused on: www.cgdev.org/sites/defaul...

In parts of academia international development is viewed as a mere construct -- a discourse of control. This is nonsense, as I explain in my most recent Substack post development is real and it matters. open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

Want to know what the real -- actually existing -- China wants? There were two great presentations on this at the Australasian Aid Conference. You can watch them via the links in my newsletter: open.substack.com/pub/terencew...

What if we dealt with the actually existing China in the Pacific rather than the phantom menace that haunts Wellington and Canberra? A barnstorming presentation from Eric Olander at the Australasian Aid Conference summarised neatly in this blog: devpolicy.org/china-the-gl...

What's the state of democracy like in the Pacific? Listen to this Devpol podcast to hear the answers: devpolicytalks.simplecast.com/episodes/pac...