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This article discusses a special issue of the Development Policy Review journal that aims to elevate the voices and perspectives of Pacific scholars on foreign aid and development issues in the region. The special issue was prompted by the low publication rates for authors from the global South in development journals. The articles in the special issue cover a range of topics, including power asymmetries in aid relationships, the importance of adapting aid to diverse contexts, the need for donors to listen to local voices, and the resilience of Pacific communities. The authors hope that this collection of articles will provide valuable insights and promote a better understanding of aid in the Pacific. [Extracted from the article]

Vaccine hesitancy is proving to be a significant impediment to COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in some developing countries. This study focuses on vaccine hesitancy and means of reducing it. Data come from a large, representative phone survey and online randomized survey experiment, both run in Papua New Guinea, a developing country with low vaccination rates. Less than 20% of relevant respondents to the phone survey were willing to be vaccinated, primarily because of fear of side effects and low trust in the vaccine. Although vaccine hesitancy was high in the online experiment, participants who received a message emphasizing that the vaccine was safe and COVID-19 dangerous were 68% more likely to state they planned to be vaccinated than those in the control group. A message appealing to social norms was also effective in reducing vaccine hesitancy, although its efficacy was limited to certain types of people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Addressing vaccine hesitancy in developing countries: Survey and experimental evidence" published in the journal PLoS ONE. The correction states that there were errors in the Funding statement, and provides the correct information regarding the funding sources. It also mentions an error in the Survey experiment subsection of the Materials and methods, and provides the correct sentence. The document concludes by listing the authors of the article. [Extracted from the article]

We test whether emphasizing foreign aid's ability to advance donor national interests increases public support for aid. We compare appeals to the national interest with other approaches, including highlighting aid's ability to help developing countries. Tests involved a nationally representative, randomized survey experiment in which the treatments were vignettes about a major real aid project. Central among our findings were asymmetric treatment effects. It was easier to reduce the view that too much aid is given than to increase the belief that too little is given. Only appeals to the national interest were reliably able to do the latter. The efficacy of the different treatments varied depending on participant ideology, although in unexpected ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Since 2013, Australian aid has been reduced and increasingly focused on delivering benefits to Australia. Motivated by these changes, this paper fills three gaps in the existing literature on public opinion about aid. It provides the only recent detailed study of Australians' opinions about aid. It studies specific policy questions in addition to the broader questions typical of international research. And it studies views on the purpose of aid, an area not previously researched. Although Australians are generally supportive of aid, most backed major aid cuts in 2015. However, most Australians think the purpose of Australian aid should be helping people in poor countries, not bringing benefits to Australia. There is a clear left–right divide in responses to all questions; however, some variables correlated with support for aid fail to explain variation in views about aid's purpose. The paper concludes by discussing ramifications for those who seek to change aid policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]