The Institute’s Dr Melanie Pill speaks with Professor Thomas Hale, author of Long Problems: Climate change and the challenge of governing across time , about the difficulty of addressing issues, like climate change, that have such distant consequences. They discuss the barriers to addressing and governing long problems, how to build stronger institutions, and how international negotiations and agreements can be better structured to address climate change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy ...
Aug 19, 2025•27 min
As global donors retreat from development finance, Southeast Asia stands to lose billions of dollars in critical support. In this episode, we launch the Lowy Institute’s 2025 Southeast Asia Aid Map and unpack what the wave of US, UK and European aid cuts mean for the region. Roland Rajah, Director of the Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre, is joined by the Map’s lead authors Alexandre Dayant and Grace Stanhope, and Southeast Asia Program Director Susannah Patton, to discuss the risks, r...
Aug 05, 2025•24 min
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto campaigned on a promise of continuity and better economic performance. Is Prabowo living up to his campaign promises or taking the country in a new direction? The Lowy Institute's Lead Economist, Roland Rajah, speaks with Dr Eve Warburton, Director of the Australian National University's Indonesia Institute, and Indo-Pacific Development Centre Research Fellows Dr Hilman Palaon and Robert Walker to unpack what’s happening and the looming questions over policy...
Jun 10, 2025•30 min
The Lowy Institute Re-Cast series republishes the best podcasts from our archives. In case you missed them the first time around or if you want revisit these engaging conversations, the Re-Cast series has you covered. Can we measure national success beyond economic growth? In August 2024, Professor Robert Costanza spoke with the Lowy Institute’s Alexandre Dayant about why countries need to move away from gross domestic product as the measure of economic prosperity and factor in other complementa...
May 13, 2025•31 min
Donald Trump has moved quickly to impose tariffs on literally every country in the world. Trump’s tariffs against Australia are not only affecting matters of trade; they potentially infringe Australian sovereignty. The Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah sits down with Dr Jenny Gordon, Lowy Institute Nonresident Fellow and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, to discuss the economics and peculiar logic behind Trump’s tariff plans, what it means for smaller countries...
Mar 20, 2025•25 min
The Trump administration is taking an axe to the world’s biggest foreign aid program, dismantling its US Agency for International Development and freezing billions of dollars in foreign assistance. The Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah is joined by Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, Alexandre Dayant, and Research Associate, Grace Stanhope, to dive into what’s happening, the rationale, and the implications for American soft power and the rest of the world. See omny...
Feb 12, 2025•24 min
The Trump administration’s recent dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and freeze on most US foreign aid has created havoc within the international aid and development sectors. Prior to these major announcements, the Lowy Institute’s Lead Economist Roland Rajah spoke with Masood Ahmed, President Emeritus of the Center for Global Development, in December last year. They discussed the effectiveness and future of aid and the factors reshaping international development ...
Feb 04, 2025•26 min
As part of the Lowy Institute Re-Cast series, we are republishing the best podcasts of 2024. In case you missed them the first time around or if you want revisit these engaging conversations, the Re-Cast series has you covered. As we usher in the new year, the global economy is at a turning point. From confronting an economic development crisis and addressing the good-jobs dilemma, to navigating the climate transition and charting a course towards a more sustainable and equitable form of globali...
Jan 06, 2025•38 min
As part of the Lowy Institute Re-Cast series, we are republishing the best podcasts of 2024. In case you missed them the first time around or if you want revisit these engaging conversations, the Re-Cast series has you covered. China is facing many economic problems, at home and abroad. The two are connected. Weak demand at home has contributed to a sharp rise in Chinese manufacturing exports, especially in green technologies such as electric vehicles. Surging Chinese exports have in turn prompt...
Dec 30, 2024•35 min
Trillions of dollars are needed to meet the world’s climate and development goals. Joan Larrea, CEO of Convergence, a global blended finance network, speaks with the Lowy Institute’s Roland Rajah about how blended finance, which uses government and philanthropic money to increase private investment, could be the answer. Joan shares her insights on what blended finance can realistically achieve, what’s needed to increase its impact, and how it can help in low income and small island developing co...
Dec 09, 2024•23 min
Each year, the Lowy Institute updates is Pacific Aid Map – the most comprehensive database tracking aid and development flows to the Pacific Islands region ever assembled. In this episode of Development Futures, lead authors Alexandre Dayant and Riley Duke join Dr Jessica Collins to unpack the key insights from this year’s report and explore key questions. How is the international community supporting the Pacific as it recovers from the pandemic? What role is China playing in the region? And how...
Nov 27, 2024•25 min
In this episode, we explore what might happen at COP29, the upcoming UN climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. With global emissions at record highs and climate impacts intensifying, this year’s conference will focus on setting a new climate finance goal to drive global climate action. The Lowy Institute’s Alexandre Dayant is joined by Indo-Pacific Development Centre climate experts Dr Melanie Pill and Georgia Hammersley, who will be hosting side events at the Pacific and Australian pavilions at CO...
Nov 11, 2024•21 min
Eighty years ago, the Bretton Woods agreement shaped the global financial system to build a better world. While its institutions remain vital, they are struggling to meet today’s challenges — climate change, economic insecurity, and a multi-trillion-dollar development financing gap. In this podcast, Lowy Institute researchers Alexandre Dayant, Michelle Lyons and Roland Rajah explore the proposal for an Indo-Pacific Economic Resilience Bank (IERB) — a bank that will aim to diversify critical supp...
Oct 23, 2024•26 min
In this episode, we delve into the United Nations Loss and Damage Fund, the most concrete effort to address restitution for those impacted by climate change. As the recently appointed board begins crafting a global fund to financially support climate victims, much remains unresolved, including complex questions about who is eligible for money and how they can access it, how to quantify intangible impacts such as the loss of traditional knowledge, and how the Fund itself can raise enough resource...
Oct 01, 2024•19 min
Can we measure national success beyond economic growth? Professor Robert Costanza speaks with the Lowy Institute’s Alexandre Dayant about why countries need to move away from gross domestic product as the measure of economic prosperity and factor in other complementary gauges of success. In a time of high inflation, increased cost of living, and growing environmental degradation, Professor Constanza argues that moving “beyond growth” is essential to achieving sustainable prosperity. See omnystud...
Aug 16, 2024•31 min
Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel Prize-winning economist, has dedicated four decades to studying poverty, inequality, health, wellbeing, and economic development. Recently, he strongly criticised his own profession, arguing that economists have overlooked the power dynamics inherent in capitalism. In this wide-ranging episode of Development Futures, Alexandre Dayant, the Deputy Director of the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre, talks with Deaton about the factors behind his shift in t...
Jun 16, 2024•43 min
China is facing many economic problems, at home and abroad. The two are connected. Weak demand at home has contributed to a sharp rise in Chinese manufacturing exports, especially in green technologies such as electric vehicles. Surging Chinese exports have in turn prompted a backlash from the United States, Europe, and others who accuse China of exporting overcapacity and damaging their own green industrial ambitions. In this episode, Roland Rajah, Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centr...
May 17, 2024•35 min
Today, the dynamic duo of globalisation and robotics, which international economist Richard Baldwin calls “globotics”, is disrupting the service sector and professional jobs faster than ever. Digital technology is empowering “white-collar robots” to take over many service sector and professional jobs, while “telemigration” opens doors for skilled workers in low-wage countries to join high-wage economies remotely. But what's next? What new jobs will “globotics” create, and how will they shape the...
Mar 21, 2024•34 min
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges for sustainable development around the world. Large developing economies, particularly in Asia, are now major sources of global emissions but need external assistance to accelerate their transition to clean energy. Meanwhile, many poor and vulnerable countries have contributed little to the climate crisis but face the worst of its escalating impacts. In this episode of Development Futures , Roland Rajah, Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Cen...
Feb 29, 2024•49 min
As we usher in the new year, the global economy is at a turning point. From confronting an economic development crisis and addressing the good-jobs dilemma, to navigating the climate transition and charting a course towards a more sustainable and equitable form of globalisation, 2024 promises to be an interesting year. In this episode of Development Futures, Alexandre Dayant, the Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, talks with Harvard professor and economist Dani Rodrik about ...
Feb 08, 2024•38 min
Many of the most economically efficient policies to reduce emissions, such as carbon pricing, have proven difficult to implement. In this episode of Development Futures, the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre Research Fellow Michelle Lyons speaks with Professor David Victor from UC San Diego on how to make climate policy work and ways to accelerate decarbonisation of the global economy. Their discussion includes the roles of carbon and offset markets in addressing climate change, o...
Dec 07, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Progress depends on many choices, notably the ones we make about technology. The way in which we structure production and communication can either cater to the exclusive interests of a privileged few or lay the groundwork for widespread prosperity. In this episode of Development Futures, Alexandre Dayant, the Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre , talks with economist and author Daron Acemoglu of MIT about the challenge of shared prosperity and the policies that could bring abo...
Nov 10, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Multilateral institutions and the global financial system are on a transformative journey aimed at confronting the dual challenge of climate change and sustainable development. This multifaceted agenda involves substantial improvements to the governance structures of multilateral development banks, the redefinition of objectives and targets, and the creation of innovative financial instruments to mobilise both public and private capital for investments in climate and development. However, the jo...
Oct 26, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 4
After a decade of foreign aid cuts, deprioritisation, and then securitisation, Australia finally has a new international development policy that aims to return development to the heart of Australia’s international statecraft. Leading that charge is Australia’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Hon Pat Conroy. In this episode of Development Futures, Minister Conroy sits down with Roland Rajah , the director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre at the Lowy Institute, to...
Oct 12, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 3
The Group of 20 Common Framework was established in October 2020 as stress in sovereign debt levels of low-income countries began to emerge. However, the Framework is yet to substantially deliver on its objective of providing relief to those countries. Mariza Cooray , Senior Economist at the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre, discusses the Common Framework and the broader debates on issues in sovereign debt reform with experts Ugo Panizza and Mitu Gulati . Together, they explore w...
Oct 05, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 2
The Green Climate Fund – the largest climate fund in the world – is seeking a new cash injection by donors in October 2023. But it's not all smooth sailing. Alexandre Dayant, the Deputy Director of the Indo-Pacific Development Centre, discusses a recent Lowy Institute policy brief with two of the authors, Georgia Hammersley and Roland Rajah. Together, they explore the key challenges hampering the Fund's efficiency, propose several reforms, and spotlight Australia's potential role in helping real...
Sep 29, 2023•41 min•Season 1Ep. 1
