Programs & Projects

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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
What other ASEAN members can learn from Vietnam’s renewable boom
Commentary
What other ASEAN members can learn from Vietnam’s renewable boom
Originally published in East Asia Forum
Political upheaval in Vietnam is holding its economy back
Political upheaval in Vietnam is holding its economy back
Vietnam in many ways seems the belle of the ball in Southeast Asia. Economically it has been amongst the top beneficiaries as multinational firms and supply chains look to…
Fragmented and burdensome: Small European donors are clogging Pacific aid channels
Fragmented and burdensome: Small European donors are clogging Pacific aid channels
In 2011, thousands of delegates from over a hundred countries flocked to Busan, South Korea, for the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Addressing delegates at the…
International partners fall short in supporting Southeast Asia energy transition
Commentary
International partners fall short in supporting Southeast Asia energy transition
Promises of climate-related finance not being met.Originally published in The Straits Times.
Southeast Asia Aid Map 2024 - Key Findings Report
Reports
Southeast Asia Aid Map 2024 - Key Findings Report
The Southeast Asia Aid Map — launched by the Lowy Institute in 2023 — is a comprehensive database tracking official development finance (ODF) flows in Southeast Asia.This 2024 Key…
Southeast Asia Aid Map 2024
Interactives
Southeast Asia Aid Map 2024
The second edition of the Southeast Asia Aid Map, encompassing the period from 2015 to 2022, includes comprehensive data on more than 120,000 projects carried out by 107…
China’s contributions are a blind spot in global climate finance
China’s contributions are a blind spot in global climate finance
Developing countries face massive costs to meet the challenges posed by climate change. This year, world leaders will come together at the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan to agree…
Southeast Asia after the shocks: Economic growth, but not as we know it
Southeast Asia after the shocks: Economic growth, but not as we know it
Southeast Asia’s emerging economies are some of the most successful in the world. Economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine…
Constrained Recovery: Global Shocks and Emerging Southeast Asia
Data Snapshot
Constrained Recovery: Global Shocks and Emerging Southeast Asia
How growth and development in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam have been reshaped by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
ABC RN Breakfast
31 October 2023
ABC Radio National Breakfast
5 October 2023
Radio New Zealand Pacific
9 August 2023
The Sydney Morning Herald
1 August 2023