A follow-on from Jonathan Cornford’s earlier posts …

Australia Day

At a function held for Australia Day in Vientiane in late January, the Australian ambassador, with a high-ranking official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in attendance, talked of long-term Australian support for development in Laos, and singled out increased investment in mining for praise, and possibly in the future, assistance in financial management. Interestingly there was no comparable mention of poverty alleviation in these plans for future “development assistance.”

[Sarinda Singh is a PhD student at the ANU working on various aspects of natural resource management in Laos.]