 When I was looking at this theme, two questions that came to my mind was, well if we are to move from the arc of instability to the arc of opportunity, what are the opportunities? And if there are opportunities, to what extent such opportunities adequately address the issues of instability and security? So having these questions in mind, you know, started to begin my search for opportunities and in doing so I was confronted with disconnected layers. Thus, my article, Peace Education and Peace Building in Solomon Islands is my search for opportunities that peace education and peace building can generate to us at Solomon Islands from the arc of instability to the arc of opportunities. Invite you, these opportunities are interwoven into disconnected layers when appropriating development in Solomon Islands. Therefore, if we are to shift priorities, there is a greater need and realization that any shifting of open priorities without serious consideration of the disconnected layers would mean shifting priorities to bring new challenges. Therefore, given this understanding, one of the key argument that I developed in my article is there is a need for a deep cultural intervention. So with those few introductory remarks, this is the outline of my presentation this afternoon. I have to keep within the time limit and I hope that it won't exceed ten minutes so that I don't give a hard time to the chair. Let's look at the place of peace education. The place of peace education in post-country peace building in Solomon Islands, what I see is that during the crisis there has been a misuse of our customs purposely for personal gains. And therefore, if this misuse of customs is not addressed during this post-configure reconstruction, the norms that are embedded in our customs do not hold any future for younger generations. So within that line of thinking, I was of the view that if there is a provision for formal peace education, it should be one of the initiatives in the post-configure reconstruction period. So coming from that perspective, I believe that we need to really, as far as the education system in Solomon Islands is concerned, there is a need for education to be put into action. And what I see is that the ethnic conflict in Solomon Islands made the Solomon Islands education authorities to rethink the school curriculum. Having come out of the ethnic conflict, they begin to see that there is a need to incorporate the teaching of knowledge, skills, values as a way of, you know, making the younger generation live in peace and harmony. So when they had a curriculum review after the crisis, they realized that one of the key themes as a result of that review is to ensure that learning opportunities will be able to make learners live in harmony with their environment so that they would be able to live together in their community. As a result of this curriculum policy framework comes the integration of peace education into the new junior secondary school social studies curriculum. So the integration of the peace topic into the secondary school curriculum is aimed at, you know, providing a bit of, you know, a sense of common citizenship as a way of, you know, nation-building because what the leaders are seeing is that, you know, we don't want to carry forward the wounds of the conflict. And one of the realization at the time is that if we want to make our future generation forget the wounds of the conflict, we need to incorporate the teaching of peace topics into the school curriculum. So that's what we are coming from. I would like to show you a brief of, you know, how the topics are integrated here in the subjects. That is an outline of what it is. So it's not a standalone peace curriculum, it's just an integration of some topics into the various subject areas in the junior secondary school curriculum. So as you can see here, like, you know, arts and culture in the 10, you know, they have a strand called, you know, cultural studies. And then the same strand in Christian education, they have Christian life within the community. And across each of those, you will see that in, as those subjects are linked to the social studies curriculum, you will see, like in year 10, sorry, year 9, they have topics like practicing peace, peace building, and then practicing peace in year 8. So that is our integration. So where my focus is on in terms of my research was is how these peace topics are integrated into the social studies curriculum. When I was looking at, as I mentioned earlier on that, when I was looking at the place of peace education in the Salmon Islands, peace building at the national level, I began to see some of disconnected layers. So the place that I'm coming from is to see to what extent that these disconnected layers would be able to reconnect the Salmon Islands society. And one of the pressing issues that those of you are reading with interest, the conflict in the Salmon Islands, you would agree with me that the underlying causes of the conflict are deep-seated traditional issues of land compensation. And they remain important during the post-conflict reconstruction and peace building. So if these issues are not dealt with in the post-conflict reconstruction, then it will still continue to pose a big challenge in future. So the process of peace building as a prerequisite to post-conflict reconstruction cannot advance if these issues are ignored. So as we speak, these issues still remain as it were. There has been some talk about how to address it, but there has been nothing tangible to deal with all these issues. On the basis, what I see as the danger is that the longer these issues remain unsolved, the more likely that it is resentment will continue to build up. And as that continue, what we continue to experience in the countries, the uneven development and grievance relating to powerful local perception of relative deprivation due to these underlying issues would remain an obstacle to sustainable peace. So those are the key challenges that we are facing. Foreign intervention without local input cannot solve complex traditional issues. And I think that that is clear enough for us to understand. And because of that, that's why some of those underlying issues is still being outstanding because people coming in and out trying to offer assistance to resolving some of these development issues, they are not able to do it because they are rooted in complex traditional issues, which even in our culture, we don't have the straightforward solution to them. So in the absence of deep intervention, the more likely it is that new set of problems will arise, which can be detrimental to peace building. In closing, this is some of the lessons that we can learn from the issues in the Salamans. As I've mentioned that because of these disconnected layers, the mismatches between form of peace building, peace education in schools, and community-based processes of building peace are as vital as large national and international peace building efforts. So what I see as one of the problems is that all forms of assistance, development assistance that are coming into the country are concentrating at the national level, whereas whatever improvements that are done at the national level are not able to be touchably felt at the grassroot level. So there still remain a gap between what has been improved up there and what has been the current problem on the ground, issues that people on the ground are living with. So if we to forge a sustainable peace in the Salomon Islands, the same sort of assistance that are given at the national level in terms of ensuring sustainable peace should as much as possible be done at the grassroot level. That's why I know peace education as an important tool to enhance grassroot peace building initiative, which needs to be also supported by infrastructural community development activities, represent the most practical and successful approach. As such, given the disconnected layers in the country's peace building, the long-term sustainable of peace remain a major challenge. Therefore, reconnecting peace building initiative through education can be a tool for civilisation of peace into the future. Because what I see that has been happening is that a lot of peace initiatives are happening in the country. But the monitoring and coordination magnesium that are in place, it's not really able to congregate all those activities and programmes to ensure that they are directed to the common goal. We have the Ministry of Peace, Unity and Reconciliation, they are running their own peace building activities. The NGOs are doing their bit as well. But there is no coordination as to how those various organisations are implementing. So there has to be a duplicating of activities. Save the children are doing theirs, World Vision are doing theirs, the National Government are doing theirs. The Ministry of Education is incorporating the teaching of peace topics into the curriculum. So it's like a piecemeal approach in all those activities. So that's why I believe that, you know, if those areas of concerns are not dealt with, the sustainable of peace in Salomon Islands still remain a challenge. Em nomo, thank you too much. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Serena Sussinian and I am from Mopungigini. I have been asked to talk this afternoon on developing opportunities for young people in my country. I will focus a lot on my discussions, a lot of the work that I do with the youth development organisation called Voice. The environment that young people grow up in in Mopungigini is very complex. PNG has a young population of 40 per cent under the age of 15 and unfortunately they are entering adulthood with a wide range of social issues. As is the case with most emerging democracies, Mopungigini continues to struggle with important challenges including corruption, poor service delivery, high rates of unemployment, the spread of deadly diseases such as HIV and AIDS and the population continues to grow while putting a strain on the already limited public services. More and more young people are receiving an education and are growing up with exposure to technologies such as mobile phones, internet and social media. With access to more opportunities comes with the responsibility to take this young nation forward. An opportunity is defined as a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something. The objective of development is to create an enabling environment for people to realise their full potential and aspirations. Development has been sought and assessed, has long been sought and assessed in terms of the economics with a particular focus on the annual growth of income per capita instead of the consequences of this growth which the quality and improvement is having on people's lives. If there is growth without it actually translating down to the improvement and the quality of life led by the people then such growth almost begins. Young people have great potential but so much of that potential will go unrealised because daily survival is a struggle in itself. Whilst Papua New Guinea has experienced significant economic growth the same cannot be attested to in terms of its decision on the human development index. Despite big projects such as LNG, Botany, I'll be here, PNG comes at 153 out of 100 in certain countries on the human development index. We can continue to look at the economy to bail us out, you know, increase investments, increasing jobs, increasing GMP and GDP but I believe that it will take more than just a resource pool, it will take a whole paradigm shift that must be centered in a collective set of values that people can stand on united to build a nation. The central question that we see to give answer to at this workshop is is it time for Australia to shift its priorities from security to development in the South Pacific. I acknowledge that Australia is doing a lot of very good work through its aid program and other NGOs that are committed to help in countries like Papua New Guinea but my definite answer to this is that it should be yes, development should be the focus but not only should it be development, it should be focus on human development. One of the central goals of human development is enabling people to become agents in their own lives and in their communities. Amitya Sen argues in development activities that people have to be seen as being actively involved in giving the opportunity to shape their own destinies and not just as passive recipients on the fruits of Kanye development programs. What Sen alludes to is that development must rely on one's freedom to make decisions for themselves and to decide the kind of development that best suits them according to the priorities according to their priorities and to choose the best means to achieve it. The idea of human development is not one that is foreign to policy makers in Papua New Guinea. Enshrined in the preambles of our constitution is our five national goals and directive principles that are meant to direct all persons in bodies of corporate and non-incorporated. A particular importance to this paper is the first goal and that is on internal human development and its dates. We declare our first goal to be for every person to be dynamically involved in the process of bringing himself or herself from every form of domination or oppression so that each man and woman will have the opportunity to develop as a whole person in relationship with others. It is interesting to see the way the statement is structured where it states that in order for people to seize opportunities to develop themselves there is this recognition that first there must be a process whereby the individual has to be involved in bringing himself or herself from circumstances that seek to oppress or restrict them. This barrier may not only refer to various places by people but can also refer to the freedom that must be first reached in one's mind. The goal then goes on to call for six sub-goals centered on education and health the family institution, promotion of culture and sciences, etc. All the above sub-goals deal with enabling factors that need to be present in order for people to reach their full potential. Unfortunately we have not been able to realize much of what is written in those sub-goals but I wish to examine two of the six factors in light of how they impact youth. Firstly in terms of education. For a country as diverse and complex as Papua New York schools are a major source where values can be talked to help shift culture and transform society. According to statistics from the P&G National Statistical Office over one third of the school-age youths have not received any form of formal education with females being both self and male. With the introduction of the free education policy by the government to ensure all people receive their basic right to have an education one must still raise the question is it free education that we need or is it quality education? The majority of school infrastructure in schools and universities in the country has deteriorated and most of these vital institutions are underfunded and understaffed. It is not only access to education that must be given consideration but important components of the curriculum and pedagogy. Individuals can both acquire and employ skills which will reproduce society or they can accumulate the skills needed to transform society. We can no longer reproduce the values and structures that have positioned our people to be the lowest ranking in terms of governance and other human development indicators. I would also like to spend time discussing the fifth sub-goal which calls for that which is the family unit and for it to be recognized as the fundamental basis of our society. Unfortunately for large numbers of young people all homes are a place of safety or refuge with large numbers facing violence and abuse on a daily basis. According to the Family Support Centre statistics more and more violence against women happens in middle-class families who are loyally explained and even church pastors strike their wives. There is a serious and fundamental flaw in the fabric of our society if such sub-standard behavior is tolerated. Why don't young people speak up? I believe the basis of why you don't speak up is security and the strong held belief that one must honor their family. It comes back to Mansoor's hierarchy of needs. People are driven by their biological and safety needs and the shelter security of all the stability without the social safety nets that need to be in place such as proper law enforcement against perpetrators of domestic violence, economic opportunities and non-inun public condemnation of the act violence will continue in the homes. The damage that can be done to one sense of dignity and self-worth by perpetrators of violence is insurmountable. Not alone the damage done to the young people and the children who witness behavior models repeatedly and it does no good for anything in the cycle of violence. If the family unit is the foundation on which any nation is built this is a very big issue that needs to be addressed. We must first practice the values we appreciate in our homes and leaders in all levels of society must condemn such acts so that young people know that such behavior is not tolerated in our society. The discussion again draws back on the importance of young people becoming agents of their own destiny to allow young people to go through a process of actually embracing the virtuality the unique sense of who they are once navigating where they will place their culture religious beliefs and the growing universal culture they're exposed to through media. I firmly believe that opportunities are there for young people in PNG. If not all, then certainly for the privileged ones that have found themselves born to parents that are able to offer them a decent education and issues such as needing to progress themselves earlier in life. From my personal experiences some of the biggest barriers are the ones that I have allowed to be placed on myself whilst trying to fit into the status quo. The constitution of PNG clearly promotes equality and participation of women and the protection of human rights. I believe that once those people which the right of opportunity to exercise such freedom start beginning exercising them you will see others liberated from their own set of oppression and start making more empowered decisions for their own life. I know because I have also become the challenge of growing up in a violent environment and all I know is that they don't want to give my children exposure to the same kind of fear that you experience growing up in such homes. Perhaps that is the biggest motivation that drove me to start and it continues to drive me as I currently am employed with the current with the organisation that I am employed with called Voiceake. Six years ago as a young university student I was doing my studies I have always believed that our people deserve more and that's really what drove me to mobilise my peers to start what was then a student organisation that promoted legal awareness in communities. We were encouraged to involve more students and we were given an office space by the University of PNG. Little did I know that I was embarking on a journey that would change the course and direction of my life. In 2009 due to the overwhelming response we were receiving outside from for the work that we were doing. The leadership of the Voice came together and had to make a critical decision on whether we were going to take legalisation to the next level or if we were to just continue on with our individual lives. Through that one year of reflection we analysed the problem around us and came up with this environment statement. Many young people do not have a vision for their lives. Many of them surrounded by violence, poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, purposelessness and idol-ness. And yet all people have a purpose in life and lack of knowledge of that purpose causes us to live out a little about potential. The key to having positive communities is to give our young people a sense of significance and relevance. It is by enabling them to realise the purpose and potential of their responsibility to use their case, talents and passions and dreams to serve their world. Under the exciting vision I made of my mind four years ago that I would put aside my own ambition of being a policy lawyer working with the government to build the voice bank for the betterment of the young people that would not give them the same opportunities as we. That was by far the most rewarding experience of my life when I made that decision to not strife with the people of society and follow the calling I felt in my heart. My story took an expected twist in me finding myself looking for a private law firm something I had sworn to never do. It just so happened that whilst working in Gaines Lawyers one of the clients of the firm was a large donor in Gaines, became aware of the work of the voice and subsequently offered the voices first round of funding removing some of us that were paying for our salaries and allowing us to expand our reach and equality programmes. So why did I tell you my story? That is to show that opportunities do exist for our people. The question remains, will we be brave enough to go after them? A number of young people have worked full time for the voice so over the course of the past few years to build and improve the organisation. I'm not the only one. Some have moved on to conquer their own fears and reach their goals one of which being Miliona Saroha, PNG's first female officer cadet from the Defence Force. The voice link is at the forefront of working with young people in educational institutions. It is a dynamic view development organisation based on what must be and runs leadership programmes with students in schools and universities in the country. The programmes aim to build a sense of purpose in the students' lives, increase their confidence and create avenues for them to contribute to other communities through projects. We believe that the uneducated people have the potential to bring about significant changes creating these, as they will one day be holding very influential positions in the government and in the private sector. The University of PNG is our largest partner where we've run leadership and anti-citizenship programmes with hundreds of students. Many of these students have partnered with leadership awards for their dedication to the service in the communities in their studies and in their private space of employment. We have seen firsthand the benefits of providing a safe learning environment that promotes dialogue and visual respect. Yep, excellence and commitment to service. Perhaps we have captured the names of what our forefathers had in mind when they saw that we were working together equally and creatively. The voice of the foreign function board of directors made up of people both in Australia and in PNG and currently has four full-time staff working on all the programmes and projects along with committed funding partners. The voice fully understands the hard realities of young people in instruction at our leadership programmes over a period of four years to take young people first through that process of self-discovery, second through understanding, you know, teamwork and facilitation skills. We also have trip sessions where we take them out of our experiential learning voyages to rural areas in PNG to see developed intelligences firsthand and our programmes then span to then taking international study tours as well. And it's really exciting to see young copy-negated staff very confidently in front of groups like yourself and they're able to articulate their ideas and they're not afraid to share what they believe in and what they think. As one of the major projects of the voice we're currently working in partnership with the University of PNG to build the first ever centre for leadership, based on the main campus of the University. The purpose of the facility is to build a leadership capacity of students at the University of PNG and in high schools around the city to equip the next generation of decisions that may get us with the character skills and knowledge they need before they enter the workforce. We're already a quarter of the way with raising funds for it and that's not even in my month of fundraising in January, so I believe that it will be a reality and we'll hear about it later in the year. I'll conclude with these words from Claire Assi, a young leader of the voice. She wrote these words in her report after participating in a one-week rural challenge experiential learning voyage in the remote area of Karena Horvath province where she helped build a library with both young people for the primary school and she says, the rural challenge got me wondering a lot about my country and what I can do. We complicated for ourselves by thinking we can task ourselves with big projects. It doesn't hurt to start small in fact there will be a more lasting effect. Nowadays, I just can't go to a restaurant and develop my food without thinking that somewhere is a company Indian who's never been outside their village. I can't just lie a bit with crackers and onions just watching the movie and before reading a novel without considering that somewhere is a company Indian who's never heard of Nelson Mandela or Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling. We've accepted it as a role for international organizations to help aid our people but what a group of company Indians can actually do something about their own country get something else all together. It's a revolution. Thank you very much. Thank you Rowling. Thanks for giving me your time this afternoon. I'd like to start by thanking the organizers of the workshop that's a great way to cut off the Pacific research colloquium which has been having here at AU this past fortnight. So during the P&D's constitutional crisis last year online activist groups were important in organizing possibly the largest and most well-organized political demonstrations of P&G has ever seen. At the time there were a lot of discussions about Malaysian spring and excitement about the impact of the internet and social media on the possibility of improving governments' outcomes in P&G and elsewhere in the Pacific. A lot of that excitement during all the global furor surrounding events in Egypt in early 2011 and the role of social media in those events. Now it's really easy to be single about that excitement and it's also very important to be single about that as well but at the same time it's also quite clear that the information and communication technology, ICT including social media but also mobile phones and the internet more broadly is an increasingly vibrant medium of political communication in the so-called archivist ability. So up here I've got the logos Oh well, I do Up here I've got the logos through the most active or three very active-facing discussion forums Sharp Top or the left FSII and you'll look up straight on the end. So this presentation will try and critically examine claims about the positive impact of ICT on governments outcomes in the Pacific. This is a very general overview just as the archivist ability is a very general concept. I'll begin by getting some statistics on communication technologies in the Pacific and then I'll incorporate this discussion into concepts of the archivist ability. I'll then move into outlining very generally so the potential positives and negatives of ICT are also political stability and governance in the Pacific and finally I'll try and present some hopefully useful takeaways on this issue. So here are some stats. I'm not sure if you've been able to see them all but what I'm trying to do here is show the story of information and communications technology in selected countries in the Pacific. So historically the Pacific has been a bit of a hole in an ICT sense. You can see that outlining penetration has historically been very low. In other countries for example there's really not a lot happening there so it's all about lines for 100 people it's not about 50% of any of the countries that I see but they're not about 50 lines per 100 people. So the same is true of other sorts of media so although radio is probably the most important media in the Pacific there are large parts of the Pacific that still don't get any radio reception and there are ongoing problems with local language production and maintenance and so on. Newspapers have also similarly been limited in their reach so although there's a vibrant independent media in most parts of the Pacific we can't assume that most people within the South Pacific region are getting their news from the papers or from the radio that learn to use. But you can see that mobile phones penetration is increasing almost exponentially and that's the story that we see all over the developing world. As in the rest of the developing world the internet use is increasing quite fast as well and most of this increase is happening via people accessing the net on their mobile phones. It is important to remember though that internet access is still very low comparatively in the region so it's still only about 2% in P&G and less than 10% in the market so I'm not going to spend a slide. So when we're talking about the impact of social media in particular we have to remember that not that many people are really using internet in the Pacific. Far more people are likely to be just using their phones to text or call each other. That will change as costs come down and connection rates increase but at the moment that's what we have to say. Although again not as much as we might think and I should clarify here that stats on internet use and social media people to come across are not really verifiable in any useful sense but I put them up just so you can have a crack at seeing what's going on. So what you can see on that right there is Facebook uses a percentage of online and offline populations. The red column is the percentage of the online population in that country that uses Facebook. The blue column is the percentage of the total population of the country that uses Facebook. You can see some pretty stark differences there. In fact in some of our refugees it looks like more than 100% of the online population uses Facebook. That's what I mean about the stats. I can only assume that that's coming from people like business and registering their accounts as personal accounts and people having multiple accounts for different activities. So what are these developments? What these developments do mean though given all the qualifications that I've tried to give is that mobile communication and new modern ICTs change the way that political information or all information really is produced and consumed. This information potentially becomes both produced and shared by peers and traditional gatekeepers of political information in particular are potentially rendered far less important. So why does this matter for our understanding of the occupants' ability? Again I'd like to point out that for me the occupants' ability as it is for many people is not that useful concept. It's a bit problematic. It's a bit too general to be balanced in its framing of important and non-linear issues. But what it does do is allow us to try and pinpoint what it is that makes this phenomenon relevant to Australian interests in particular. And we get at this via the impact of ICT on good governance. So as you can see with the quotes that I've put up there Australian policy is inherently linked to fostering security, stability and cohesion in the region. A bit further down, the defence white paper from the second quote, this devolves a good discussion of state virginity which is from the most recent World Bank strategy on implementation and good governance. And it explicitly means increasing use of modern ICTs with positive changes in governance. In fact, it lists as the second most important change since the last World Bank before this issue. So now I'd just like to briefly outline some of the ways that ICT can contribute to good governance and security, stability and cohesion. But also some of the ways that it can detract from these goals. It's important to note that there is little to no research done on these issues in the Pacific. So the examples that I'm using are largely from elsewhere. It's important to note too that there isn't really a lot of very rigorous research on ICTs and governance in general. There's just not that much. There's a lot of hype and a lot of anecdotal elements, but not much more. But the economic benefits of modern ICT views are probably the most clear cut and well stated of all of these. And you see that we can make clear as claims or of course there have been poor qualifications to be made. To put it very simply on the plus side, research around the world has shown that ICTs can contribute up to a 1.7% increase in GDP in developing countries. That's the key element of the paper there. Michelle Jump is a senior major economist and that's the great paper review if you'd like to read more on this. Indeed, the PNG some commentators suggested that the introduction of mobile phones and associated competition in the telecoms market in PNG in I think 2007 increased GDP by not 0.7% in just over a year. That claim hasn't been tested but it fits in with the work that's been done elsewhere. Apart from just improving competition in the telecoms market though, mobiles in particular act as a general with growth in other areas. There is a very important mobile making projects happening in the Pacific region for example, which in themselves can facilitate other projects such as microfinance and microinsurance for previously unmanaged millions of the population. So in PNG the GDP recorded over 320,000 mobile money registrations in 2012 and just over 6.8 million transactions. That's 6.8 million transactions and the service was only introduced in 2009. ICT also facilitates remittance flows by reducing costs and increasing speed and a recent World Bank paper from SEGA points out that South Pacific is actually a hotspot for mobile money programs and particularly remittance programs and that's largely because of a fairly stable, comparatively stable, regulatory environment for telecommunications. On the political side modern ICT is having shown elsewhere to facilitate government transparency and accountability and citizen engagement. So on the first of those open government projects which release funding data on sort of government projects what your local members are to that sort of thing have allowed citizens in Poland Malaysia and Brazil for example to track what their politicians vote on in parliament where the funding comes from, where the funding goes and how spending is allocated and it also has allowed them to contact their representatives collectively on certain issues which this data raises. There isn't really anything comparable to these websites in the Pacific at the moment in the sense of databases and other websites set up specifically to these open government style initiatives. The closest I think is a little news website in PNG called Fix My Road which maps problems with roads. Other websites focus specifically on revealing and tracking corruptions in Indian website by payabribe.com allows users to register where to and to whom they paid a bribe and how much they paid and several prosecutions with local level resignations of action is also on that website. In Kenya the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Council has initiated an online corruption reporting system where people can maintain and anybody that report give detailed reports of corruption that they encounter. Now there haven't been any prosecutions resulting from that so it's an ongoing problem with this idea of identity transparency. You can be as transparent as you like but if you don't have the institution to support that nothing much is going to happen. But what it does do, at least in the Kenyan case because it has fairly stringent reporting requirements, what you're giving up happens with reporting that are useful to themselves I would argue. So in the Pacific there aren't really any websites that are specifically to reveal corruption but what we do have is a very vibrant culture of blogs and discussion forums in many of the so-called arc states and these have a real effect on highlighting corruption. So just to give two quick examples of where we've actually seen an offlining action for online discussions. This online arts international forum is at the moment I think being sued for defamation by the Prime Minister over allegations raised on the forum that he paid compensation for an intramarital affair. Similarly Ben Micah, the Prime Minister and the Else Chief of Staff of Penji, raised the prospect of maintaining long-distance crackdown on bloggers shortly after there were detailed discussions of Chuck and Penji blogs about his corrupt activities. So prior to this transparency activity relates to the role of ICTs in increasing citizen engagement with governments and one of the fundamental goals of good governments is that engagement. On blogs and social media people in the Pacific possibly for the first time discussing political issues collectively and organising an off-line protest between Penji, the souls and Ben Micah to various forms. What you also have, intriguingly, is increasing political participation in online politics by politicians to having a Facebook page to actively participating in online discussion was apparently a shock to the users group in Penji Parliament for example and Facebook engagement arguably played a big role in the success of the ground justice party and around frequent violence success in recent government elections. Studies from elsewhere also show that online political discussions can encourage greater political engagement by historically underrepresented groups such as women. And we're not seeing any goal in this in the Pacific but women are certainly playing a visible role online forums have also engaged diaspora members more effectively and we're seeing this in the Pacific at the moment so up to 50% of action hours members apparently come from outside Penji which I think is really striking all the difficult to test. I think in the Pacific too I think it could be a useful way to connect urban and rural communities linked by internal migration patterns so it's a slightly different way of thinking about diaspora and possibly one that's more relevant to the Pacific and a way of engaging kind of communities in certain types of political discussions. But as I said previously it's important to pretty pretty analyse the effect of modernised ideas on political life in our region. Studies elsewhere have shown that as well as potentially increasing citizen engagement for example new media can inspire fracturing and disengagement. A recent study in Tanzania found that increased exposure to election information by the internet made citizens less likely to vote. They were just overwhelmed by the information made increasingly cynical by the amount of information available to them and the level of scandal in their reporting. Other studies though mainly in developed countries have shown that political engagement by the internet can increase the fracturing of political identities. Then you can arguably see this in Fiji I would say where despite a vibrant political bloc sphere blocs are not hoping to create a coordinated position and rather their attraction division which already exists. The literature as to elsewhere suggests that political engagement by a lot of the ICTs can facilitate and intensify scandal and rumour politics in a way that's really unhelpful for building Australian collective political identities and I think that's what we do in Fiji. We can also point to less than positive effects for women and gender relations so probably the only in-depth study in mobile use in P&G done by a woman called Dr Amanda Watson and her work shows that mobile phones are having disruptive effects on traditional values and anecdotal stories from all over the city suggest that women are feeling the brunt of this as might be expected. Perhaps the most important downside from Australia's perspective though is the link between new ICT and collective violence. Most of the incidences in which Australian security agencies have been engaged on the ground in the Pacific recently have been absolved of street violence. So in P&G for example in the 2009 anti-Chinese riots in the Solon Islands in 2006 and also in Taiwan in 2006. Studies after the Kenyan election of 2008 show that the key role there that mobile phones played in encouraging collective violence so what you had there were fun treats established by political parties to get information out about the group and what happened was as the votes became contested text messages were sent out all those fun treats encouraging people to act in violent ways and that was encouraged by supported radio broadcasts. So the link between radio and mobile phones for example I think is important to highlight here as it raises the role of media ecology media ecology in understanding the political impact of new communication technology. So when I say media ecology I mean the interplay between different types of between phones, TV radio and so on. In P&G for example people listen to the radio on their phones and studies have shown that in Taipei Square that was a really important sort of thing to understand the interplay between Al Jazeera social media and phones. But again back to the Pacific the photographs that we know have been organized largely by largely online, mobile phone, happy and peaceful in the Pacific. But given the history of I think mobilization on some issues and street violence in some parts of the Pacific I think that's possibly the most important and really focused to the arguments through the lens. This is particularly important to note given the demographics of the Pacific the so-called youth bulge and as someone pointed out that just the youth of the population is the people who are using this technology and these are the people whose use of the technology is important to understand. Oops for a minute. Okay so to finish what we take away from this very general discussion first things are changing in the information communication sector in the Pacific and quite rapidly. This is likely to affect governments and security issues of interest to both Pacific Island states and Australia simply because it means a fundamental shift in the way they talk about and organize around politics. Secondly there's a lot we don't know and there's a lot of hype to cut through. Most studies on the political impact of ICT have been conducted in the developed world very few have been conducted in developing democracies and even fewer close to none have been conducted on the Pacific. The political impact of ICT is dependent on many variables not least of which are the pre-existing political environment and the history of political organizing and collective identity in different communities. We don't really know even in developed economies for example what makes some people organize online and then act offline. The concept of information culture is really important here that means the way that different communities conceptualize truth, authority and information and understanding this I would argue is key to understanding the impact of ICT on politics in the Pacific. We haven't even begun to do that so we can't assume that Papua New Unions and Tongans use the internet or their mobile phones in the same way for example all that men and women do or perhaps most importantly that urban and rural communities do. Thirdly and finally there's a lot to be done understanding the impact of ICT brings together a whole lot of really interesting fields of academic inquiry fields as diverse as political economy, anthropology, linguistics and of course security studies. If the outcome instability is truly an outcome of opportunity in understanding ICT This presentation is a preface of a longer version of the paper that I have prepared for the workshop. The presentation focuses on youth participation in Fiji and the opportunities that exist for Australian engagements. I'd like to thank the organizers specifically for asking me to engage in this topic because it's also given me the opportunity for the first time to think about Australian involvement in Australian engagement with youth participation in Fiji and issue a topic that I've been working on for some time. Now my focus will be on the Fiji Community Development Program a recent program in Fiji spending a number of years with about couple of million dollars over the five years working on capacity building CSOs and funding CSO activities and also exploring in general terms some possible forms of meaningful engagement with Fiji and young people. Fiji has a very youthful population with 15 to 24 year olds making up about a quarter of a population, about around 60,000 and could be even higher if one considers the social definition of young people which is between 15 to 35 years of age. A youth bulge coupled with an employment poverty, premature schooling and health care concerns often preoccupy the functions and planning priorities of the government and international development partners. However, young people themselves rarely participate in this process and by participation here I'm referring to youth activity that influences socio-economic and political change concerned with the nature of the society that young people want to live in. The current landscape of young people's participation in Fiji is storied despite the existence of a national youth policy and related regional documents that explicitly promote youth participation. The most common form of involvement is through performance and responsibility things that young people do in a traditional context. With civic and political contribution very infrequent and often tokenistic. A small number of active young people predominantly in urban areas are involved with non-governmental organizations many of which appear to be elitist in nature. The existing scenario of youth participation in Fiji I think has evolved because of the government and relevant stakeholders who failed to establish meaningful and sustainable structures that are called young people legislative policy and practice provisions for participation at the different levels of society that they exist in. Traditionally the silent voices of Fiji's young people exist within adult structures of control. These voices have been silenced even further following the coup of 2006. Fiji's current political environment makes it difficult to exercise civic and political rights in an environment where democracy is compromised the government rules by decrease media freedom is curtailed there is little political accountability and selective public consultation establishing meaningful and sustainable participatory structures for young people is a challenge. This poses challenges for active citizenship and is compounded by critical issues like unemployment and health related concerns. It is estimated that about 22% or 35,000 of Fiji's youth population is unemployed. This number again could be more if it includes the social definition of young people and those young people who are engaged in the subsistence sector as well as the informal center. The urgency of the situation is reflected in more than 20,000 individuals, many of the young people who are registered with the Fiji National Employment Center. Health concerns such as lifestyle diseases, obesity and diabetes especially amongst urban young people. Suicide and attempted suicide, alcohol and drug misuse HIV and AIDS are really impressive concerns amongst young people. These issues and others like education and climate change impact in the life of Fiji's youth population more so for vulnerable youth subgroups and by vulnerable youth subgroups I refer to young people in rural areas, young people with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people. In this context, the participation of young people becomes critical how can participation be acknowledged and supported in a struggling context and with limited resources. Given these and other internal challenges, the next section I consider as opportunities for Australian involvement in enhancing and influencing meaningful youth participation with Fiji. Australia has been consistent in its call for the restoration of democracy. Perhaps depending on elections in 2014 and return to the parliament of democracy would pay the weight of development of young people's participatory processes and structures. As Australia reassesses its diplomatic love hate relationship with Fiji's regime amidst recent developments and reforms, there is scope for Australian engagement with Fiji's citizens, in particular young people at the community level. This is because current Australian engagement with Fiji is channeled from development partners and organizations, many of whom engage young people either directly or indirectly, or whose space accords young people opportunities for active involvement. This consideration takes into account Australia's long-term security and now growing development agenda in Fiji and the region generally at the core of this interest is a concern for a robust economy and a stable democracy in Fiji and young people I believe are integral to attaining peace. Fiji and Australia have a long, inimicable relationship. This relationship exists at various levels. Economically, Australia is one of Fiji's major trade partners with the total trade between 2011 and 2012, totaling 490 million Australian dollars. Trade remains as Fiji's main export destination, receiving about 20% of Fiji's products. Fiji's tourism industry is boosted by about 300,000 Australian tourists to Fiji a year. At the same time, Australia is home to more than 50,000 former Fiji residents and a popular, staggy and holiday destination for many Fijians. At the diplomatic level current Australian relationship with Fiji is often tense and fractured due to Fiji's political turmoil over the years. As a result, much of Australia's foreign policy and assistance to Fiji is contingent on Fiji's commitment to turning to parliamentary democracy. To this effect, Australia provided Fiji 4.9 million dollars as assistance towards the elections office, voter registration exercise and constitutional consultations. Australia's most visible, through its status as Fiji's largest bilateral donor from 2005 to 2012, Australia turning to Fiji to around 413 million. Aussie's 20th tour for 2014 Fiji country strategy maintains this high level of assistance with the promise of Australian 55 million dollars a year to tackle poverty and vulnerable communities. The Fiji Community Development Program is deemed very integral in this process. This program supports the relevance of Australian presence in Fiji and consolidates its people-to-people relationship at the community level. Current Australian engagement with Fiji is strongly influenced by Fiji's millennium development goal, performance and target specific socioeconomic geography and demographic forward. Institutional strengthening focuses on primary education, child and maternal health, women's economic empowerment and the prevention of violence against women. There is no specific mention of young people in these initiatives. However, it is expected that young people in particular are implicated. The most visible engagement between Australia and Fiji in relation to young people has been in the area of arts and study assistance in the form of the Australian Development Assistance and the Australian Regional Development Scholarships and access to training at the Australia Pacific Technical Formage. Opportunities exist to make Australian engagement with Fiji and young people more explicit, particularly in the prioritized areas of poverty reduction, education, health and civic contribution. Given the known challenges of affecting structural and institutional change in Fiji, possibilities lie in tailoring strategies with Australian priorities at the local level. A realistic option of engaging young people within Australia's current engagement framework is through the Fiji Community Development Program that I alluded to earlier. This will address a major gap identified in the findings of the Fiji CSO that now organisations surveyed worked with young people as their primary focus. Factoring the involvement of young people in the Fiji Community Development Program offers a realistic opportunity to enhance community youth participation, involve active young people and address challenges related to funding and capacity building. This I think would be explored in the following general ways. Include young people in collaborative decision-making structures of the Fiji Community Development Program. The percentage of the CSO recipients under the Fiji Community Development Program should have an active youth membership and have young people as their main service users. Strengthening rural youth organisations, governance and participatory structures this will ensure that young people operate in transparent and accountable ways and at the same time acquire leadership skills. This attends to some of the capacity building focus of the National Youth Council and works towards the development of civic competence for young people, many of whom will be removed from formal setting where civic education and learning takes place. And to establish a competitive youth fund within the Fiji Community Development funding model to support youth initiatives that support income sustainability lovable options and health concerns. Purposeful youth activities in local communities could help address concerns about youth urban youth migration and related issues. Proposed initiatives I think should include a consciousness raising component. Activities that influence and create change have a higher chance of succeeding. Other possible forms of engagement that I've been talking with when thinking about this presentation is working holidays. Fiji does not qualify under current Pacific system workers Kim and the reasons for this are obvious but I think the way of addressing Fiji's youth unemployment scenario as well as the shortages in certain Australian sectors rests with grant in young Fijians working holidays in Australia. The possibilities are exploring as diplomatic relations between the two countries improve. Another area is mentoring between 2012 and 2014. 70 new volunteer placements will be created in Fiji each year. Volunteers work in a broad range of sectors. However the nature of their work in interaction with host organizations and the community at large is not well understood. Part of the general assumption is as holidaymakers during their time in Fiji a possible way of developing a volunteer youth partnership is to establish a body or mentoring program around volunteer placements for young employees in host organizations or other young people with an association to host organizations. Supporting research and young researchers Australia can play a significant role in supporting youth research and emerging young researchers. The development related research and sectorial research prioritizes young people in Fiji or even in the region is scarce. In addition promising young researchers are often lost to NGOs that offer lucrative career opportunities. It is encouraging that the research priorities are blind in Aussie's research strategy 2012 to 2016 will benefit some young people. As a result future Aussie funded research in Fiji that's how the research process and outcomes will involve and benefit young people and stakeholders in the youth development sector. Those institutions and research units that benefit from Aussie funding and whose researchers work in Fiji should consider partnering with local institutions in particular young researchers. Emerging researchers over the past years participated in events hosted by Aussie's research partners like SSGM in the Pacific Research Colloquium. The impact of such important exposure is unknown. The critical point is that young Fijian researchers and the Pacific peers cannot continuously be beneficiaries of activities touted to build their capacity. They deserve a bigger and meaningful state in research institutions and units that have an interest in the region. To conclude, engaging with Fijian young people is not an isolated exercise. Challenges to their anti-part propositions exist at different backgrounds of Fijian society and the greater Australian agenda. The presentation has offered some thoughts and opportunities to support and enhance in a meaningful way youth participation. The discussion prioritizes the youth agenda and in some way problematizes current development priorities for Australian engagement with Fiji. At the same time it is possible that consideration for Australian engagement with Fijian young people will be viewed with concern by conservatives particularly in Fiji, where there are differences of outside influences on young people. The critical issue is that Fijian young people both passive and active are stifled in Fiji and experience limited participatory opportunities to address issues and realize aspirations. For too long Fijian young people have been let down by their leaders with many in the future elsewhere even if this only exists as dreams. These dreams could be realized by Australian engagement with young people in some of the identified areas. Australian will openly engage with Fiji and it is beginning to do so given the democratic standards and expectations are met. The sooner Fiji holds free and fair elections and demonstrates a genuine return to parliamentary democracy the better it will be for its citizens and particularly young people whose future is not only possibilities and opportunities from within like Australia. Thank you.