Measured conversations on development and power.
Devpolicy Talks treats development policy as a set of hard, specific problems rather than abstract good intentions. Its conversations move patiently through evidence, institutions, money, power, and the lived consequences of public decisions.
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Devpolicy Talks is a measured, interview-led show about development policy and its consequences in real places. It spends much of its time in Australia’s aid orbit, Papua New Guinea, the Pacific, and the wider Global South. The show’s style is deliberately patient. A typical episode starts with a framing problem, then follows the guest through definitions, history, evidence, and consequences before settling on what the issue means in practice. That makes it better suited to careful listening than headline scanning. Recent conversations examine China’s lending and influence, Pacific democracy and data gaps, climate adaptation, labour mobility, African agriculture, and the politics of corruption. The show often resists simple binaries. In the episode on China and the Global South, the central tension is not whether engagement is wholly predatory or wholly beneficial, but how borrowers, creditors, domestic politics, and post-pandemic constraints interact. Episodes on Pacific governance take a similar approach. They connect electoral systems, constituency funds, local expectations of leadership, and public trust without reducing politics to a single cause. The same pattern appears in climate and water discussions, where infrastructure, geology, local knowledge, and warming risks are treated as overlapping pressures. The show can also be morally direct. Its episode on Femili PNG’s work with survivors of family and sexual violence foregrounds transport, case support, justice barriers, and the long work of building services. The pacing is unhurried, and the guest voice often carries the substance. That gives the program a public-seminar feel, but the best passages are concrete enough to avoid academic distance. Devpolicy Talks is strongest when it follows policy from the conference room into households, farms, villages, courts, schools, and parliaments. It is not trying to entertain through argument. It is trying to make complicated systems legible.
Made for: For listeners interested in aid, Pacific politics, governance, climate adaptation, labour mobility, and development practice. It suits people who prefer careful explanation and regional detail over fast commentary.
What sets it apart: The show stands out for giving guests time to develop complex answers, then tying institutional detail to concrete lived effects. It treats development policy as practical governance, not as slogans or spectacle.
Devpolicy Talks brings you interviews, event recordings and in-depth documentary features relating to the topics we research at the Development Policy Centre. The Centre, part of the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, works on Australian aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and regional and global development issues. It is host to the Devpolicy Blog (devpolicy.org) and a range of public events including the annual PNG Update, the Pacific Update and the Australasian Aid and International Development Conference.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Devpolicy Talks makes development policy legible by tracing how institutions, finance and infrastructure shape lives across Papua New Guinea, the Pacific and beyond.
Devpolicy Talks follows policy from institutional language into its consequences on the ground. Robin Davies and Amita Montarola lead conversations on Pacific governance, development finance, employment programs and climate adaptation, asking guests to connect broad frameworks…
A PNG MP is a 'working ATM,' and your democracy index suddenly needs a footnote.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient, grounded look at China's changing financial reach and the complicated judgments it draws across the global South.
China's relationship with the global South comes through as a matter of shifting capacity and disputed meaning, not a simple argument between boosters and critics.
A careful account of Pacific democracy beyond the rankings.
Pacific democracy frames the episode, but its sharper interest is the gap between governance rankings and the political arrangements people have to work through.
A clear policy review of climate thresholds, drying springs, and adaptation grounded in science and local knowledge.
Water anchors this policy review, connecting Pacific communities facing 1.5 degrees as a survival threshold with India's 2020 heat wave, which began in early March and reached 47 to 48 degrees.
A steady look at protests, corruption and political responsibility in Indonesia and Nepal.
Young people in the streets give Dev Policy Talks a clear way into a wider question of political trust: who the military, police and army are seen to protect, who is held responsible after violence and death, and how corruption is understood in public life.
A clear, measured review of Vanuatu's political culture, foreign partnerships, and economic strain.
Vanuatu's politics, economic pressures, and regional partnerships come through in a focused conversation with Gregoire Nimtik, drawing on his senior government and regional experience.
An impact evaluation examines whether Papua New Guinea's largest employment program led to formal-sector work.
Papua New Guinea's Urban Youth Employment Program is treated here as a practical test of a wider policy question: whether public works and active labour market programs can move people into steadier employment.
Agnes Kalibata argues for agricultural systems designed around African smallholders rather than European or Australian models.
Agnes Kalibata argues that African agriculture needs systems built for smallholders, not copies of European or Australian models. Her practical vision starts at village level: shops, hired tractor services, improved seed, fertilizer, irrigation, finance and agricultural…
Interview with Family PNG NGO about supporting survivors of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea.
Interview with Dr Helen Durham about her career as a humanitarian lawyer and the application of international humanitarian law.
Chris Hoy presents initial findings from an impact evaluation of Papua New Guinea's Urban Youth Employment Program, the country's largest job initiative.
Host Robin Davies interviews Dr.
Tri Hastuti Nur Rochimah, General Secretary of Aisyah's Central Board, says the organisation has about 25 million members and sympathisers across 38 provinces and 465 districts.
Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of the China Global South Project and former BBC, AP, and CNN journalist, traces his China focus back to studying Chinese in 1985 and moving to Kinshasa in 2010.
International IDEA and ANU's Department of Pacific Affairs released a mid-2025 report, Assessing the State of Democracy in the Pacific, because the region is often "underrepresented in global data sets." Lina Rikila-Tamang explains that the Global State of Democracy framework uses "154 indicators" across "173 countries," but only four Pacific countries clear the 250,000 population threshold.
Dev Policy Talks with Dr Aditi Mukherjee links the 1.5 degree threshold to Pacific island survival, India's 47–48 degree heat waves, and the IPCC's water chapter.
Dev Policy Talks links Indonesia's late-August protests and Nepal's September 8 protests to youth anger over corruption, police violence, and unequal access to state power.
Gregoire Nimtik says Vanuatu's citizenship-by-investment model became "a source of corrupted activities" after a budget shortfall.
An interview with the CEO and staff of Family PNG about supporting survivors of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea.
A webinar discussing a paper on skill development and regional mobility, proposing a Pacific Schools Partnership to address Australia's vocational worker shortage.