So welcome everyone to the launch of the Lowy Institute Southeast Asia aid map Before we begin Let me start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land in which we are meeting here today and Pay my respects to their elders past present and emerging Let me also mention that we have several board members of the Lowy Institute here Let me thank Sarangas Houston and the honorable Penny Wensley for joining us here today Let me also acknowledge our research director is also here her they let me here enjoying the snacks My name is our Robin Roger, and I'm the lead economist at the Lowy Institute But I'm also very glad to say that I'm now also the director of our newly established Indo-Pacific Development Center Which is part of how Lowy is really looking to deepen and expand our work on development issues in the region and our work on development finance in the Indo-Pacific in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific in particular as a key element of that of our work and That's very much led by my colleague Alex Dayant who is the lead researcher behind the Southeast Asia aid map and you will be Hearing from him in a moment about the map as well as our other colleague grace stanhope is also here today and another core part of The team behind the map Now many of you will be familiar with the Lowy Institute Pacific aid map and now as we look to build on that work and move to the south to south southeast Asia Obviously the challenge has become much bigger. It's a much bigger region. There's a lot more players Operating in the region many more projects a lot more dollars and a lot more use of a wider set of development finance instruments that go Well beyond aid towards in particular non-concessional lending Guarantees and equity investments in a range of other Instruments, there's also a much bigger role played by a range of non-traditional Development partners, so not just the traditional development partners such as Australia United States Japan or Multilaterals like the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank But also a range of emerging non-traditional partners such as China India and the Middle East So the picture is very very complex and fortunately for us. That's where the Southeast Asia aid map Comes in to shed light on the very many important questions going on in the region around how Development finance can support the region's ongoing development how it can help respond to the challenges posed by climate change But also how it's playing a role within the geo strategic competition going on principally between China and Various other countries operating in the region So the proceedings for tonight in a moment We are going to hear from Alex Day aunt as the lead researcher behind the map Who's going to present on the interactive tool that has been created as well as the key findings from this? initial launch of the map and Then we're going to move into a panel discussion with some of our experts and then Q&A With the audience but before we get to that as this project has been very generously Supported by the government through de fat We also have an important message From the Minister for international development and the Pacific Minister Pat Conroy who unfortunately couldn't be here today, but he's relayed a message for us via video Hi, I'm Pat Conroy Australia's Minister for international development and the Pacific Since 2018 the Low Institute specific aid map has recorded who is supporting development in the Pacific and how much they are giving In a system like ours We are accountable to the Australian public and need to be able to demonstrate to Australians that their money is being spent Effectively and responsibly abroad But we are also accountable to the governments and communities around the region that we partner with They also deserve clarity in who is supporting development initiatives in their countries and how much they are providing Aid transparency must be at the heart of a healthy and modern international development program Greater transparency allows donor governments to coordinate better to avoid duplication and waste and to maximize the benefit Delivered to the partner government and community So when it comes to delivering aid that matters transparency is a rising tide that lifts all boats Today we come together to mark the launch of the Low Institute Southeast Asia aid map The map will reveal the currents of international development in Southeast Asia And allow anyone using it to compare the contributions of approximately 70 donors in the region In support of this excellent initiative the Australian government has provided $1.8 million in funding over three years to deliver this mapping across Southeast Asia Providing development assistance is the right thing to do. It's in our national interest and it's in our region's interests It's part of our foreign policy mission to secure the peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific That's why the Albanese government has increased Australia's official development assistance by 1.59 billion dollars over the five years from 2022-23 to 2026-27 Which includes an additional 470 million dollars to Southeast Asia. This is the biggest increase in the aid budget since 2011-12 The government has also restored long-term growth to the aid budget by reinstating indexation from 2026-27 These decisions will see Australia's annual ODA budget return to five billion dollars a year from 2026-27 After falling to four billion dollars per year under the former coalition government The government has also been busy constructing Australia's new development policy The first long-term development framework in almost 10 years At the center of this policy is our commitment to partnerships in our region This means genuinely listening to our partners so we can lift the quality of our development program Australia's development assistance partnerships with Southeast Asia are a priority for this government Our Southeast Asia program works with partners to tackle shared challenges including climate change in the clean energy transition gender equality inclusive economic growth resilience rapid digitization knowledge and skills development and infrastructure Our commitments to the region help our partners become more economically resilient develop critical infrastructure and provide their own security so they have less need to call on others Southeast Asia is one of the most vibrant and dynamic regions in the world And the success of countries within the region matters to Australia Our international development program supports growth stability and promote state agency But intentions while important aren't everything we must get the delivery right We are committed to listening to our partners and helping to meet their ambitions and priorities We are committed to transparency And the Low Institute Southeast Asia map will allow us to uphold this commitment And to genuinely work with our partners to provide the support they need I have every confidence the Southeast Asia aid map will be a fantastic extension to the work already done by many in this field Congratulations to the Low Institute on the launch of this important initiative. Thank you Okay, well, thank you to the minister and also to DFAT for supporting this project Now without further delay I'd like to invite my colleague Alex Diant up to the stage Alex is the deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Development Center at the Low Institute and also a senior economist in the IPDC He is the man behind the Pacific aid map as the lead researcher of that product And now he is also the lead researcher behind the Southeast Asia aid map So, please join me in welcoming Alex to the stage Well, good evening. Good evening everyone. So my name is Alex Diant. I am the map guy at the Low Institute So, yes, look, I led this research project and And so really today it marks the culmination of two years of hard work Where my team and I so Grace, Roland and many others have really like, you know spent a lot of time trying to analyze and really measure development flows in Southeast Asia And so, you know, I must admit I'm very happy this project is other because I'll be able to have a social life now again I'll be able to have normal nights, but mostly I'm very happy to see that many of you here tonight, you know, it's It's really like, I mean, this is a great turnout and we had a lot of attention today in the media on this specific project So, yes, thank you very much to all of you for being here tonight. It's uh, it's uh, you know It's a great compliment for us So Um, look what I'm going to do is I'm going to organize my presentation in three parts The first part I'm going to explain you how we build the aid map. The second one I'm going to show you how it works and the third part is I'm going to show you to talk to you about some key findings So, well, how do we do the the Southeast Asia aid map? We have collected data on more than 100,000 projects from 97 different development partners Not 70 like the minister was saying 97 From 2015 to today and so for traditional partners like Australia and New Zealand France or even the world bank We um, we had two primary sources of information. One is the OECD Where all development partners are required to actually report their development program Another platform is called the IATI the international aid and transparency initiative where you can find way more detailed project information Um, but we also engage with the development partners directly So, you know, we got in touch with the the bank with with the french government and so forth But for the non-traditional uh, for the non-traditional development partners, you can imagine it was a whole different story I mean, China doesn't have a repository of all its aid projects in Southeast Asia. Uh, india, uh, doesn't have the same either Taiwan Taiwan doesn't have either And so we had to adopt a more a more hands-on approach Uh, where we had to go through every um, Southeast Asian budget documents We had to go through every press release social media post just to be sure that we found enough information for each project to Not only see that this project was happening on the ground But triangulate this information just to make sure that this project were a real thing And once we had gathered all this information, we send it directly to the to each Southeast Asian countries to the aid and development units Management units in in Southeast Asia for them to validate this information Um, and once they have validated this information, then we put everything on a cool little interactive that i'm about to show you now So this is the landing page of the Southeast Asian map It provides high level information of official development finance, uh, at the regional level A key visual that you will see throughout this interactive Is the presence of those two green circles the outline circle represents the amount of development finance committed That is that is like the amount promised or signed for specific project And on the other hand the field circle represents the amount of financing that has been actually delivered on the ground And we figured out that was an important distinction to make because we realized that many development partners are committing a lot But they're actually not implemented and implementing that much Um, we have collected data covering the period from 2015 to 2021 which represents the most recent years for which we have complete information And by default, uh, the landing page displays the aggregate figures for all the years expressed in constant us dollars Um on the left panel, you will find the ranking of um of development partners in the region By selecting any of the 97 different, uh, partners listed you can, uh, access the specific financing details in Southeast Asia And after selecting a specific partner, you have the opportunity to explore the distribution of their development finance across various sectors Um, we have also implemented a filter selection where you can get more specific results on the data in this in this section We have also created pre-selected filters For instance looking specifically at climate development finance or looking at the footprints of non-traditional non-traditional development partners in the region um, so Every time you select a sassy station country You can either have a look at the detailed analysis we have made On this country or you can jump directly on the project map page Where you will see individual projects starting to populate the map When clicking and when clicking on a project, uh, additional information will be displayed This includes the project description and the say the sector it belongs to relevant internet links And the transaction history of this project And from the project from the project map, sorry You can also narrow down you search by selecting a specific development partner or sector And the map will automatically update with the relevant information But you know while we we think this is a cool feature of the the eight map We have also to acknowledge the fact that you know, you cannot put all type of project on the map You can't put scholarship or budget support And so for this we had to actually broaden the scope of our ambition for the map and we had to create a new analytical tool for you to be able to cut the data in the way that that you find interesting And so The first of this tool is the database page It serves as a repository for the extensive collection of over 100 000 projects that we have compiled And so when you click on a project detailed information specific to that project will be displayed We have also implemented a filter box to help you for To help you look for a specific project And most importantly, you can You know freely download our entire data set And create your own analysis by you know creating Clicking sorry on the top left button that says download the data Another feature of the sassy stage a map is a graphing tool that allows you to create trend analysis Here you can select from a range of different variables that will allow you to generate the graphs that you are interested in For instance, you can compare the amount of grants or loan provided to sassy stage Um or the amount of development finance disbursed in the infrastructure sector versus the amount of money disbursed in human development You can also you know add different filters you can But you can also change the type of graph that you that you are interested in Um And so we also have implemented a tool that enables you that enables you to do a direct comparison between different partners For instance user can easily compare australia's development finance in sassy stage add to that of china And once selected this section provides the wealth of information On about these two partners including their allocation on development finance The sectors they prioritize for financing And their major projects in the region And so obviously you can do the same with each sassy stage and countries as well Yes, I like that someone likes this this picture. Could you do yes Thank you. Thank you And so, you know from our menu section You can access all the information on the website Notably the many country analysis that I've mentioned before but also A series of semantic analysis on climate on infrastructure and so forth And more importantly you can access our our methodology you can download our the whole data set again And one of the things you can do also is actually You know have our key finding reports, but you should all have one be seated on one of them So this is it for like the interactive now. Let me talk to you about our key findings Did you like it though? Nice. Yes. I like this a round of applause. Please Thank you very much Okay key findings Yeah, so the first key findings is that you know between 2015 to 2021 Sassy stage I received about 200 billion dollars in official development finance So just as a reminder for us official development finance is The combination of grants concessional loans. So loans that are below market rates And non-conceptional loans. So those loans are a bit more expensive to the to the concessional loans But I still have the purpose for development So Sassy stage I received around 28 billion dollars per year In official development finance mostly targeted at the most pressing development needs of of the region such as health Education social protection, but also infrastructure Almost half of it is concessional by nature So meaning it it is under the form of grants or Cheap loans and the other half is actually non-conceptional loans that are mostly provided by china's main policy bank So the xin bank of china or the chinese development bank, but also by the the world bank and the the asian development bank In terms of trends development financing has been decreasing over the years Mostly reflecting a diminution of you know, the official development finance dispersed in both indonesia and vietnam That together I count for almost half of all the development finance going to sassy stage And as you can see there is a peak in 2020 So like the covet 19 in 2020 and the reactivity of development partners means Or led to like a 55 percent increase In funding where official development finance reached reached a peak of 35 billion dollars So where is this funding coming from? Well, as you can see china is the largest development partners in the region But not by far It is followed by the multilateral development banks as the adb and the world bank That focus actually less less of the Development finance and infrastructure so infrastructure is the yellow bar that you can see On this graph and so in japan is the largest bilateral traditional Partner of the region So where is this funding going? Well, most of it is directed towards the region the most emerging and Developing economies. So really we're excluding Singapore and brunei although you could find project information for Singapore and brunei in our in our map And indonesia in vietnam are receiving, you know, as I mentioned before around half of the odf delivered in the region So the second key finding Is that, you know, development finance plays a major role in meeting sassy stage development need The sassy stage is one of the most, you know Dynamic region in the in the world and it has experienced decades of rapid economic growth Which have actually listed millions of people out of poverty And so today one could argue that, you know, the region is past the point of aid and development I mean, especially when you look at the magnitude of, you know, private source of private sources of of investment such as Sorry private sources of financing such as, you know Private domestic domestic private investment for indirect investment and remittances But the reality is that actually those type of Financing don't always go To a specific area such as health, you know, education social protection and even in infrastructure actually Most of the infrastructure is financed by the public sector And so this is why aid and development remains actually A key component in sassy stage in helping sassy stage in filling those gaps And actually we have estimated that odf official development finance is equivalent to around 10 to 15 percent Of total government development of total government development spending on infrastructure on health On education and on social protection and this can actually jump to 80 percent when We consider the small countries the smaller economies of sassy stage as such as timor leste and and laos Now the third finding Third finding is that the china is the leading development partners in sassy stage, but it's actually declining and it faces competition So china accounts for a fifth of Development financing flowing to the region This is massive actually. I mean, this is around like five point five billion dollars per year To the region and an important features of china's development finance is that it's going it is delivered through non-concession No, mostly delivered by the two policy bank. I mentioned before so it's in bank of china and china's development and chinese china's development bank and And so a lot of this funding this financing is going towards infrastructure One of the interesting that we've realized when we did this analysis is that actually chinese financing is decreasing As you can see over the years and so like there are few reasons behind this decrease We believe the first of them is the first of them is that china's economy china's economy is actually experiencing a slowdown So there might be a there might be A reason for beijing to actually prioritize its funding to like its domestic market rather than spending money abroad The second point is that you know china is actually through this analysis We've realized that china is actually experiencing some Complication when implementing its project on the ground. So for instance, I like they have two examples like the the jacada to bonding high-speed rail in indonesia or the east coast rail link in malaysia Both of those projects have experienced actually difficulties and many many delays some problem with land Land reclamation. Sorry in indonesia And this have been even more evident during the global pandemic where you know international border closures and And health restriction measures meant that basically the chinese workers that were implementing those projects on the ground Were not allowed in the country and those projects have actually stalled for a little while And the third reason behind china's chinese financing decrease is It's actually a phenomenon that happens all around the world But it also happened in sassy stage that china is providing a lot of financing a lot of a lot of financing through loans And some of the countries struggle to actually pay back the payback those loans in sassy state I for instance laos has already asked twice the twice china to push back the debts Repayments that laos on to to china And so we believe that maybe you know china is actually becoming more cautious in the provision of its laws around the world And so these basically all three reasons have Contributed to like a decrease in chinese financing in in sassy stage And so we believe that now like china is actually facing quite a competition, especially in the infrastructure sector And so this is our next key finding is that infrastructure is where the real competition is in sassy stage development financing So in this analysis As in the aid map infrastructure is composed by four sectors energy or power telecommunication transport and water and sanitation And so infrastructure accounts for around 40 percent of the total development financing Spent in sassy stage are around 11 billion dollars per year And china is the leading is the leading financier with two fifths of the infrastructure development financing delivered But what we have realized is that actually china is far from being the dominant player In each of the sectors i mentioned before So if you look at this graph, you see that in the energy sector china accounts for half of it And that might be the only place where actually china is leading the the pack in transport. Actually Japan is the japan is the the partner that spends the most in sassy station In communication china is actually on par with korea And in water and sanitation china doesn't actually play a big role And that maybe is like translate the fact that china focuses on economic infrastructure rather than social infrastructure But when you flip the coin I think this is something you can say in english when you look at the other side When you look at commitments not this person. Well the story actually changes a little bit China china's infrastructure commitment averaged around 12 billion dollars per year Between 2015 and 2021 which is three times The amount of japan the next largest infrastructure partner and more than half of the total commitment of the total commitment on infrastructure So what does this tell us? It tells us two things like the first thing I believe is that you know china is facing difficulties in implementing its project and that has definitely reduced its infrastructure financing But also the commitment shows us that china is still ambitious and still wants to remain The you know the the main Infrastructure provider in in sassy station Now to my last key findings and i'm doing very well with time. I'm kind of happy about this So climate development finance Has increased steadily in south east Asia. So yeah, one of the things that we're doing in this in this tool And that we will be actually doing in the pacific a map. So keep an eye on this is tracing climate development finance So south east Asia is one of the most vulnerable region to climate change and so What we have seen is that over the years climate development finance has actually Been increasing steadily over the years Um mostly financed by the asian development bank by japan and by china and so in 2021 Around 11 billion dollars were spent in development finance On climate which represents around two fifth of the region mix of the region development finance But the what we realize is that the outlook for climate climate finance is mixed in in in south east Asia And there are like three reasons behind this The first one is that We realize that the increase in climate finance is mostly due to To an increase in projects that have a significant component component on the climate mitigation and adaptation Well, it's like project that have a sick principle focus on climate adaptation and mitigation as like are actually flat So that's like one of the first new ones to look to look into the second one is that With respect to the energy transition We've seen that there is actually a decrease in non-renewable Energy projects in south east Asia. And so this is a good news But we've also seen that actually there is a decrease in renewable energy projects And so in a way, you know, like this is coming from the fact that actually energy projects overall across the board have decreased in south east Asia So this, you know, it's at odd with the region's need for more and cleaner energy And the third point is that you know Again in this tool, we we're tracing both disbursement and commitment And so yes, like the disbursement of climate projects have increased But when we look at commitments, which actually gives us an indication of like the future disbursement Or like, you know, the outlook of disbursement on climate Well commitment on climate finance has actually been decreasing over the years And so this tells us that, you know, there's a risk that We might see less and less climate development financing in the future. So This means that yeah, the outlook for development finance or for climate development finance isn't certain in in the future So anyway, those are my few other key findings I hope you enjoyed this. Please do visit south east asia map dot louisinstitute.org. I think it is But yeah, thank you very much. And if you have any question, please do ask them at the end of the presentation And please my fellow panelists come on board Okay, well, thank you for that alex, you know, it's a great Huge wealth of information An analysis is in there. So I encourage everyone to have a look at the certainly at the interactive. It's very user friendly But also the key findings reporters for those that would like the The key messages the key takeaways given directly to you at least according to to us Before we begin, let me introduce our our our panelists First next to alex. We have a dr. Hillman polon He is a digitalization expert and research fellow in the louis Institute Indo-Pacific Development Center and has formally worked one with the indonesian governments elite poverty reduction research unit attached to the vice president's office the tmp door car As well as go to which is indonesia's leading tech platform company And then secondly, we have of course dr. Jenny Gordon Jenny is a non-resident fellow with the louis Institute. She's the former chief economist de-fatch also a former Principal researcher at the productivity commission and more generally just one of australia's top public policy economists So Jenny hillman and alex. Thanks for sitting on the panel Hillman, I might kick off with a question To you just you know, we've seen the results from the map. We've seen the cool interactive that's been created I mean, what's the sort of what's the most interesting sort of elements that just what's the parts that just jump out at you? Looking at what's what's on the on the screen. Thank you. Thank you I have an opportunity to test this Website before the launch so last week So I got the password for alex. So I just tried to find out about that. What is the cool about this? So this is a map. So number one is very user friendly. So congratulations for that. So even though you don't know about statistics It's like easy to manage Which information that you want to know from this? So this is a map. So my interesting findings are number one is Mostly the united states and australia focus or supporting the hard skill things Sorry soft skill like the government and civil society Whereas the china and the japan in this case, they are mostly focused on the hard skill things Which are the infrastructure and energy? So that's my first findings and the second one I see that I would like to because my background is more related to the banking and financial services I would like to know who are the providers or the odf Uh donors that support this area and it's really makes me that only what bank and adb Mostly focus on the banking and financial services. So it's like big question for me. Where are the other donors? and then I try to do the Analysis with other findings from Indonesian perspective. So I find out that Based on the data in late 2022 about the foreign workers in Indonesia It's recorded around 100 112,000 coming to Indonesia And I'm not surprised because 50 of them are from china And the second one is japan And then the third one is from south korea So that's my my findings and simple analysis from Alex southeast asia Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Uh hillman. It's very striking the soft infrastructure by the traditional donors a hard infrastructure by by um by china essentially by the nontraditional donors and as well as uh japan Um jenny, what about you? What's the what are the sort of key things that have jumped out at you? Well, it's a lot of fun to play with That's always a good start and and I really love the graphics Uh facility in it too So I think one of the things that was really interesting to me was that that you really make that committed versus spent very clear And when you start looking and unpacking that the really big one is china, you know china's commitments I think I wrote the number down so I could remember at 95 billion But spend is 37.9. That's a big difference And it's a couple of when you start sort of unpack and say what is that Does it really tell us much? It tells us there's a couple of really big projects That have yet to actually come to fruition for for china and there's some interesting questions about whether that's just covered Whether there are what else is going on and these are in the you know loans that are not at concessional rates And it's for malaysia and thailand And so those are really interesting to see whether they're getting cold feet. Is it just particular projects? So I think what I really love about this product is it asks it gets you to ask questions You go, that's interesting. So what's going on there? So it's actually the drilling down and then you can go and look at what other projects that you you're sort of seeing That haven't happened that have been committed So that was one really interesting area and I think the other really interesting thing that it really leaps out at you Even though you kind of know it anyway, which is that australia's aid portfolio largely grant aid We all know that Very tons of projects. I mean, you know, it's something like almost 5 000 projects in the database Most of them really small. So if you're thinking about, you know, it's a really interesting Development program that we have and it's very very different to most of the other donors I mean more so some of the europeans and the like they're much similar in profile But then you start thinking about what does it take to implement a program like that? You know, what sort of skill levels does it take and then that question of could we Do something else in addition with development finance? Um, and then who we'd be competing with who's already doing that? Well, are they doing it? Well, is anybody doing that? Well, it'd be the the other question So I think it's it's just a really fun thing to look at and to kind of go that's interesting go drill down So that's what I recommend everybody do have a play with it. That's excellent I remember when I saw an alex told me the number of projects. It's a hundred thousand projects The the former aid practitioner in me was actively annoyed when I heard that number in terms of what that meant for aid effectiveness In the region But alex, you know, jenny brings up australia I mean what for you? I mean looking at this at the map australia is one of the mid-sized players In the region. But what do you think all this means for what australia Is doing or needs to do? Well, that's a good question. That's a good question. Sorry, but just to reber on what you were saying before, you know, like The numbers of aid projects in the map. Yes, we have like a hundred and seven thousand projects But you know, you were you were talking about like oh china commits a lot but doesn't actually do much Well, china has well less project than australia And so like the the average size of a chinese project would be like maybe 10 times that of that of australia Which in a way is not, you know, I mean you gotta give whether it's a good thing about things But you know, um, it's actually a single new institute to to have As to australia. Yes. So australia is uh in in our aid map australia is what we call a mid-sized Development partner, you know, we have a ranking of like all the partners by We're ranking them by volume of money disbursed in in sarsi stasia. And so australia ranks around eight And if you take the multilateral development banks the world bank and the adb then it's ranked six, but still, you know, uh, it's far far behind other partners um, I think what's interesting with australia is that uh, you know, our our aid program to in sarsi stasia has actually been decreasing um There's been decreasing until the pandemic and when the panning strike strike stroke happened um When the pandemic happened in sarsi stasia. Well, actually australia was one of the development partners that reacted the most forcefully We tripled our development budgets to sarsi stasia and established by providing a massive loan to indonesia of 1.5 billion austrian dollars So I think this is a nuance to bring another thing about australia is that um We are the third largest grant provider in in sarsi stasia you remember like there are three different types of financing in in uh, in uh, the map Like the grants the loans and the the concessional loans and the non-concessional loans while australia is the third provider of grants in sarsi stasia behind The united states which is the first provider and japan And so it still means that you know, like we are actually a very generous country We are a very generous partner in sarsi stasia now like if you ask me like what else could we do? well, you know, we could look at expanding our financing mechanism and provide maybe Maybe provide more loans similar to the loans that we've provided to uh to indonesia to other countries And the government is currently going through like a development finance review and uh, and a development review So maybe this is something that we could look forward to And jenny, can I bring you in on this? I mean A lot of the other development partners in the region not just china, but also japan the world bank the adb there Yeah, they're achieving scale by using a variety, you know a lot of non-grant financing including completely non-concessional financing with You know, maybe it's questionable with china at times, but the world bank and adb japan are also doing it Do you think that something australia should be doing more of or or what's your sort of view? Well, we've been having a wonderful debate. Um, if you want to read the interpreter, uh, you know Rollins quite a fan of the development finance the corporation idea I'm always a bit more doubtful about it But I think also you've got to think about it's it's what what are you designing an aid program for? What are you trying to do with these just not the volume of dollars that matters? It's actually the content of what you're doing and how you're working with a partner and we heard minister conroy talk about A really much stronger focus on partnerships and those partnerships require actually quite a lot of diplomatic and bureaucratic and effort on the behalf of both partners to actually make them work and so Sometimes the it's not so much the amount of money as that engagement And that engagement won't necessarily show up in an oda budget because of the way You know oda is is measured so but it is an effort that needs to be put in place So if you want to be influential, it's not just the size of the box And if you go build a bridge to nowhere, that's not very helpful If you've displaced a bunch of people by building a big project, you can cause social disruption And so I think I've gone off ever And so it's about being really careful about what you do as well So it's not the total sum of money that matters quite so much in asia as it does in the pacific where there's a much greater need for finance But I mean, you know, we know the the infrastructure deficit is enormous We know there's a huge demand for infrastructure across the world actually investment for You know decarbonizing the economy So we know those numbers are big But I just think we need to be thinking about the quality of our a program and not just the spend And that we need to be thinking about that mix and how cleverly we can use that mix That's very important words of caution as per our online debate. Just a quick note Well, I'm gonna just throw it a hillman in a second But after that we might start taking questions from the audience So please be ready if you'd like to ask a question But hillman, what about from your perspective? I mean, you you know, you've worked in the indonesian government as a senior policymaker You've also worked in the development sector in indonesia I mean, what do you think the region needs in terms of development finance? What role should it be playing? Yeah, I think most of the developing countries, especially in indonesia So the north star is they want to be a developed country So to achieve this they need to have like sustainable economic growth reducing property and also the inequality So we come back in the basic development economics The growth the property and also the inequality So in Indonesia itself, they would like to focus on the six private sectors now Until at least until 2045 So the renewable energy the health industry The mining but with added value That's why we heard about the indonesia request that smelters would be in the country And an automotive come in the list which is most Particularly for the electronic vehicle And then after that, of course the tourism So those are the main product of indonesia But not to forget They would like to also create the job opportunities for having these kind of things But the main challenge that I found out that everything We can buy indonesia can buy They can allocate the money Indonesia can get supporting from the investment projects But the main challenge is to have the compatible Human development human human capital in the country So for instance for the renewable energy, there are several support from donors for the for other Countries, but to operate it in to to maintain it. It's another challenge So a lot of solar panels just like It works only for five years after that Nobody can maintain it So the transfer knowledge is not there. So so that's the main challenge That first thing Thanks Um, maybe we'll go go to the audience. Does anyone have a question for the panel? Yeah, just the front Anyone else just put your hand up and I'll hopefully see you to line you up for the next one Thank you very much for that. My name is Kim. I'm a business consultant I'd like to ask about the development of funding for religious Influence because I I can see you've got infrastructure and education and health and those sorts of really great things But the particular area that you're looking at that particular Asian region within the CMAP has Have you embedded in there our studies about the religious influences in particular like these Islamic influences? Thank you Thank you, Alex. Do you want to take that question? Kim, thank you very much and thank you for liking for your reaction when we showed the the comparative to that was really good Yes, so sorry. Yeah about like religious projects. So For the for the sake of simplicity in the map, we have We have only a section of a selection of 13 sectors But if you have a big enough computer, you could download the database and you'll see that we have like actually I think it's around 150 different sub sectors in which I think religious protection is part of like the governance and civil society projects And within those you can actually yeah, you'll see you'll be able to find many projects I think that that's one Part of the the answer the other thing is that one thing we didn't mention about this is You know the intra regional sorry like the the development corporate the development financing coming from the Middle East And so the Middle East is actually quite a significant player in in South East Asia And when you look at which countries of the Middle East or which entities in the Middle East are providing the most financing you'd be Maybe not surprised to see that actually the islamic development bank is the largest provider of development finance from The Middle East in the region and it focuses a lot on indonesia actually 99 percent of its financing goes to indonesia Well, because you know like there is this kind of religious There's you know, like I mean indonesia is a muslim country and there is this How do you say this connection that I think Middle Eastern countries are trying to establish with With South East Asia and so those kind of analysis are exactly the type of analysis we want you to do by Downloaded the database so please do Thank you, okay Do we have another question from the audience? Is this a gentleman? Yes, hello, I wonder whether we might my name is Philip Elias and I'm wondering whether the The people behind and working on this very very impressive project might be able to make some comments on the question of countries decisions to spend Aid and development money on the basis of ideology which is largely in my international development experience through democracy building governance gender issues like that and hard or Other other forms of investment which might be just to encapsulate as infrastructure Let's say right to put it in one word and how you've observed the rationales for the decisions to invest in these directions But the overlay and the part of the question which I think is most important is in in terms of the minister's remarks that we heard and the panel's Retiration of some of those remarks about partnerships dialogue with recipients and beneficiaries um, what what do your research Experiences suggest about ideological or soft or uh mercantile or hard Forms of investment and how Australia might engage with its partners and what do they want from our from our aid support. Thank you Yeah, thank you very very pointed question um To give Alex a quick break jenny you would you have any interest in Tackling that one. Yeah, that's that's it. Thank you That means a really interesting question. So if you actually look at china strategy, it's belt road strategy It wants those even though it made some mistakes and it gave loans where it was just after political influence to start with It got pretty smart about wanting to be repaid and in fact analysis of many of the china loans that has been done has found that they're really They're they're in infrastructure projects that make a rate of return and that rate of return gets paid into an escrow account in china So they are trying to tie that up. So they've got an economic kind of rationale for doing it I actually think deeper than uh, you know Just the the reason that they're they're slowing down on this is one What are viable projects that they can invest in but the other was they had Accumulated a huge portfolio of us treasuries. They were really exposed to the us treasury market The belton road initiative was one way of running down the us treasury portfolio creating a different set of assets But also providing markets for their their steel industry and their construction industry as that was slowing down in china and they've been slowly winding down steel making in china and the like and so, you know It was a it was a strategy that had many prongs to it But it had a natural kind of winding down curve to it to some degree So they're very focused on, you know getting repaid is and certainly much more so as well as having that kind of Wham influence, you know good women cutting an ounce of all type influence I actually think the real power lies in in that long-term engagement of soft power It's the it's the smaller partner to partner. It's the engagement. It's the one and a half track It's um, I mean one of the really interesting things in the in the data is if you actually looked at the australian one And saw who were most of the sort of delivery partners you had his Huge numbers were think tanks universities and particularly into southeast asia less so into into the pacific But in southeast asia because it is trying to build those relationships It's trying to build those kind of, you know, we respect your capabilities And we can benefit from your capabilities as well as you can benefit from our capabilities So it's trying to build that it's a different approach. I think that You know, it's it's how we keep at it You don't want to pull out and so one of the dangers of shrinking an aid program is you've been making this investment in relationships for years And then suddenly you stop it, you know, and it doesn't fall over all at once But it will slowly kind of get less and less And so we need to make sure that if we reinvest in these relationships and reinvest in these In these kind of engagements We need to have a plan to keep going because it's you don't want to sort of stop and start These are not things you can stop and start well. So I think that's what I think we're trying to do in in that soft power But being really good to get hillman's view on how he thinks what's more influential Yeah, oh, I think like The government is always dreaming if I may speak as a former government officials We always dreaming like have an integrated solutions So not one piece by this country the other piece by the other donors That are business owners, but how can you guys collaborate and come up to the country with the sophisticated solutions? And come out with the sustainable potential support for the country. So that's that's the one that I view Alex, do you want to come as well? I'd like to say a little thing here Um, just actually two things. Jenny mentioned, you know, like the delivery partners This is something I didn't mention in my in my presentation But you know, obviously we're looking at like the development partners But like most of the development partners don't actually have the technical capabilities to implement projects on the ground So they are they're hiring contractors what we call development Implementing channels. And so we have actually the information of all the implementing channels as well So we have more than a thousand 500 different implementing channels. The law institute is one of the implementing channels I mean the this project is funded by, you know, the eight program And so we are, you know, trying to improve transparency in South sister and some ways So that's one thing the other the other thing for philip. Thank you for this is a great question I think Jenny answered this question very very well one Data point I would relate to on the on the southeast Asia map is that you know, I mentioned to you that The United States is the largest providers of grants to Southeast Asia Well, one of the largest sub sectors in which the us is spending its money is actually on promotion of democracy and you'll see like The u.s. Is trying to promote democracies in many countries So, you know, obviously trying to to push for its ideology But then I remember I read an article saying that some countries actually don't welcome the promotion of democracies So, you know, you could argue in a way that it's like a project that would that would push for the us's values more than actually Benefit from like the recipient the recipient countries Yeah, we're just at a comment on that. I mean, I think You know, the interesting thing is how the question is often how much thought necessarily goes into the choice between these different kinds of engagements You know, the strategic pressure to get into the infrastructure space, for example You know, it's it's leading to a desire to do more in infrastructure at the expense of other things But not necessarily a careful thought process for why that might be the case It doesn't make sense necessarily give up The soft infrastructure space is particularly not just I mean not just around democracy promotion say but around governance Around anti-corruption around public sector reform around all the rate the way infrastructure itself is regulated and governed As in in order to try and get into just financing infrastructure going back to the original point Jenny made Earlier, so I think the challenge is also making those sorts of decisions and a lot of the time It's not really being guided by clear strategy of the of the trade-offs We're pretty much at the line. I think Probably we will probably have time for one more Question we've gotten from the audience Lady in the in the middle here Thank you so much. So interesting. I love the pacific map. So really excited to see this expanded My question is around I think the The quantitative data for this is so amazing and you know just offers up so much opportunity, but to your point around soft power and that kind of ongoing engagement and relationship and really Transparency around where future dollars are spent Is there opportunity for this map to look at? I mean at its simplest form embedding some sort of program evaluation into the breakdown But then also having a bit of an understanding of how future dollars are considered based on how past dollars have been Invested I'm just really curious around, you know, we've got trajectory of spending How do we use this to demonstrate where future money and investment is going based on what partners are telling us on past spending? Thank you. It's a great great question. Alex. Um, I'm not sure I actually understood the question. Sorry The question question was about the ability to integrate Performance sort of information into the map question now Thank you and and to think about whether or not the trends and what it means for future Quality so to speak. Yeah. Well, sorry. I'm french. So like, you know, I don't understand everything that you say it's sometimes difficult for me, you know So, you know, look, yeah, so I think this is a very good point What this tool is about is very much about the quantity of money flowing to the region At this point, we don't evaluate the quality of project. We don't you know, it's difficult to um to Yeah, it's difficult to know how efficient the project is on the ground Saying this though, uh, you'd be very pleased to know that at the law institute in the ipdc We're working on what we call a donor efficiency index So that's like that. That's something that we are designing for the pacific aid map first But uh, we'll try to to apply this basically macroeconomic views on how efficient the project is for the pacific And once we have the once we this method works for the pacific then we'll be able to apply it for star c station Is that is that the kind of room and so you are looking for? Yes All right, thank you very much for that question And let me thank the audience for all of your great questions and being an excellent audience and let me thank Our panelists, uh, Dr. Jenny Gordon, Dr. Hillman Pallone, and of course alex dyart For his excellent work on the southeast asia aid map round of applause, please and thank you very much