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The Indo-Pacific Development Centre

The Indo-Pacific Development Centre (IPDC) is a policy research centre at the Lowy Institute dedicated to generating fresh policy insights and ideas on the most pressing economic development issues in the Indo-Pacific region. The IPDC focuses on key challenges facing emerging and developing economies in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and South Asia as well as the role of more advanced Indo-Pacific economies such as Australia, the United States, Japan, China, and others in helping shape the future economic development of the region.

The work of the IPDC is organised around six key themes:

  • Post-Covid recovery, growth and development
  • Climate finance and decarbonising development
  • Technology and the digital economy
  • Globalisation and regional integration
  • The future of international development finance
  • Geoeconomics and the intersection of development and security

As part of its development finance pillar, the IPDC houses the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map, a digital interactive that tracks all official development finance flows to the Pacific region.

The IPDC has been established with the support of multi-year funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Featured projects

Southeast Asia Aid Map
Southeast Asia Aid Map
New interactive tracking more than 100,000 development projects, the most comprehensive assessment of development flows in Southeast Asia ever undertaken.
Pacific Aid Map 2022
Pacific Aid Map 2022
Updated research shows the unprecedented disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Pacific Islands region caused upheaval in how international donors provide aid.
Experts
Latest publications
News and media
The Translator: The nomenclature of foreign aid
The Translator: The nomenclature of foreign aid
Heard diplomats or analysts using a new turn of phrase only to wonder, “What does that mean?” Today we ask…What is Official Development Assistance?Official Development Assistance…
Indonesia's free lunch program is cooking up economic change
Commentary
Indonesia's free lunch program is cooking up economic change
Originally published in East Asia Forum 
If industrial policy is the new candy house, developing countries need to gain more than just the bread crumbs
If industrial policy is the new candy house, developing countries need to gain more than just the bread crumbs
Industrial policies such as the US Inflation Reduction Act or China’s Made in China 2025 policy are examples of a new suite of economic policies governments are deploying around…
Replenishing the Asian Development Bank in the Pacific
Replenishing the Asian Development Bank in the Pacific
In early May, donor governments are expected to unveil new funding commitments for the grant-financing window of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) – the Asian Development Fund…
Mind the gap: Ambition versus delivery in China’s BRI megaprojects in Southeast Asia
Data Snapshot
Mind the gap: Ambition versus delivery in China’s BRI megaprojects in Southeast Asia
China has become Southeast Asia’s largest infrastructure financing partner. Yet there is an enormous gap between what Beijing promises and what it has delivered.
Digitizing G2P Payments: Lessons from Indonesia
Commentary
Digitizing G2P Payments: Lessons from Indonesia
Originally published on CGAP 
A multilateral bank for the Indo-Pacific?
A multilateral bank for the Indo-Pacific?
Governments around the world are facing complex intersecting challenges: how to achieve supply chain diversification and resilience while simultaneously pursuing more ambitious…
Australia hopes to co-host COP31 but do we have what it takes?
Commentary
Australia hopes to co-host COP31 but do we have what it takes?
  Originally published in The Canberra Times, 1 March 2024.  
Gender equality financing: Spotlight on Southeast Asia
Gender equality financing: Spotlight on Southeast Asia
You can’t manage what you can’t measure, as the adage goes. And in terms of measuring gender equality and women’s empowerment, considerable barriers exist. While significant…
The Australian Financial Review
27 September 2022
ABC Radio National Breakfast
5 July 2022
The Saturday Paper
27 August 2022
ABC Radio National Breakfast
5 July 2022
Business Times Singapore
2 August 2022
Canberra Times
14 December 2021
The Canberra Times
16 November 2021