Jenny Jones: “my vision for London is of a more sustainable, fairer and cleaner city”

Green Party candidate for London Mayor Jenny Jones details her proposals to encourage a 10:1 ratio of company pay, to boost contracts to smaller firms through her mayoral office and how Londoners could have a safer and healthier life in the city. This is the third in a three part series with the mayoral candidates, including Brian Paddick and Ken Livingstone, with an introduction by Tony Travers

Widnes Sure Start: Patterns of registration and service usage in 2002-2003

This report aims to summarise information about families and individuals who have been registered with or used Widnes Sure Start in 2002-2003, and assess the reach of the Sure Start programm

Papua New Guinea in 2015: at a crosswords and beyond

The Papua New Guinea economy will record the highest GDP growth rate in the world in 2015 but will also formally fail to meet any of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals in their deadline year. Overview This paper represents conclusions reached by thirty participants at a Roundtable meeting, Papua New Guinea in 2015 – At a crossroads and beyond, convened by the Lowy Institute for International Policy on 28 April 2015. Participants included representatives from business, government, civil society, academia and the media – from Australia and from Papua New Guinea. Discussion focused on challenges for the next generation of leaders in Papua New Guinea and future directions for Australia-Papua New Guinea relations. Findings Even with fourteen years of successive GDP growth, it has proved difficult to spread the benefits of the Papua New Guinea\u27s boom. A major challenge for the next generation of leaders in Papua New Guinea will be to better manage the nation’s wealth and effectively implement policies and programs that will result in improved living standards for all Papua New Guineans. The resources boom has helped drive investment in infrastructure but catering for the nation’s growing youth bulge is proving a particularly difficult policy problem

Big enough for all of us: geo-strategic competition in the Pacific Islands

China\u27s growing engagement in the Pacific Islands has fueled talk of great-power competition in the region.  But viewing China\u27s activities in the region in geo-strategic terms is inappropriate and potentially counter-productive.  Australia and the United States should focus on cooperating with China in aid and investment activities that support Pacific Island development priorities rather than building new security arrangements designed to compete with or manage China. Key findings: The rise of Chinese influence, which is driven predominantly by diverse commercial interests, does not presage a new era of geo-strategic competition in the Pacific Islands. China’s engagement in the Pacific Islands is overshadowed by the dominance Australia enjoys in aid, trade, investment and defence links with the Pacific Islands region. Increased external interest presents a new opportunity for Pacific Islands to achieve their development goals

Australia - the indispensable power in a congested sea

This presentation explains a new complexity in the Asia-Pacific region which portends a greater range of strategic choices, and suggests measures Australia could take to respond to future challenges. Outline: Strategic outlook for the region in the framework of the assessments made in Strong and Secure: A Strategy for Australia’s National Security Australian dominance in the region A new complexity in the region portends a greater range of strategic choices for the region Dominance versus influence What should Australia do to prepare for future challenges

Australia's costly investment in Solomon Islands: the lessons of RAMSI

Summary In this Analysis Lowy Institute Melanesia Program Director, Jenny Hayward-Jones, argues that Australia’s massive expenditure of $2.6 billion on the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was a high price to pay for restoring stability in a small country. She argues that although there were many laudable achievements, the key lesson of RAMSI for Australia is the importance of knowing how much to spend and when to leave. Key findings Australian expenditure of$2.6 billion on the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands over ten years was a high price to pay for stability in a country of 500,000 people. The RAMSI experience showed the value of integrating Australia’s foreign, economic, aid and security policies and just as importantly of working with Pacific island partners in the region. Large-scale missions like RAMSI would benefit from clearly defined exit strategies and rigorous assessment of performance in order to control costs and maximise impact

Australia-Papua New Guinea emerging leaders dialogue: outcomes report

Presents the outcomes of a dialogue involving twenty-two emerging leaders from Papua New Guinea and Australia, from across the business, government, media and non-government sectors. Introduction: The Lowy Institute hosted the inaugural Australia-Papua New Guinea Emerging Leaders Dialogue on 26 November 2013. The Dialogue was convened with the support of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and was an initiative that arose from the 2012 Papua New Guinea-Australia Ministerial Forum. Twenty-two emerging leaders from Papua New Guinea and Australia, from across the business, government, media and non-government sector, participated in the Dialogue. The Dialogue focused on four main themes: Growing the economy and attracting investment in the Asian Century; Politics and accountability – new expectations; National infrastructure challenges – new approaches; Reform and innovations in the delivery of health and education services. Key findings: Perceptions of Papua New Guinea among the Australian public and business community are narrowly based. They focus on media reports on mining, crime and corruption. These perceptions could be improved by businesses better publicising their successes in Papua New Guinea, the use of creative media and increasing people-to-people links between the two countries through networking and structured collaboration. Social media is rapidly changing the media landscape in Papua New Guinea. Although traditional media continues to be important, the proliferation of mobile phones has given Papua New Guineans, including those living in rural or remote areas, the ability to influence what the media reports and to get their message into the public sphere. Australia and Papua New Guinea, although at difference stages of development, face many of the same challenges in infrastructure and the delivery of services to remote areas. Papua New Guinea could benefit from Australia’s experience in consultative infrastructure planning between governments and business and using emerging, cheap technologies to meet the health and education needs of remote communities

Mobile technologies: prospects for their use in learning in informal science settings

Recent developments in mobile technologies have offered the potential to support learners studying a variety of subjects. In this paper we explore the possibilities related to science learners and in particular focus on science learners in informal settings and reflect on a number of recent projects in order to consider the prospects for such work. The debate on informal learning acknowledges the complexity of the area and the difficulty of defining informal learning. One view is to consider the settings in which learning takes place as a continuum from formal settings, e.g. university, to social structures, e.g. friendship groups (Sefton-Green, 2004). The literature on science learning with mobile devices at this very 'informal' end of the spectrum is currently sparse and so in the paper we reflect on some projects and possibilities across the continuum. Our main focus is how mobile devices can support informal learning in science and research possibilities. Some of the recent research on mobile learning has used an activity theoretical perspective, including one of the case studies we discuss and in the final part of the paper we highlight the influence of activity theory in helping us to consider the complexity of the learning settings

Widnes Sure Start user satisfaction survey

This report discusses levels of satisfaction with Sure Start Widnes, levels of knowledge of the existence of Sure Start Widnes, and how people access the services offered by Sure Start Widnes.Sure Start Widne