Pacific Institute of Public Policy

Dame Carol Kidu, DBE (Hons)
Dame Carol Kidu served in the Papua New Guinea parliament for 15 years. Choosing not to re-contest her seat of Moresby-South in the 2012 National Elections, Dame Carol retired from politics at the end of her third term in July 2012. During her time in parliament, which included nine years as Minister for Community Development, Dame Carol focused on legislative and policy reform for social development, advocating for a human rights based approach to development with a focus on marginalised and vulnerable populations. Since leaving parliament, Dame Carol has served on the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development.

Mathew Matthew Morris
Matthew Morris is an economist specialising in aid and development policy and has twenty years experience as a professional economist. Most recently he was general manager of the PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd. Before this he was the head of economics for the UK aid program in India. Matt has provided economic advice for the Australian, Papua New Guinea and UK governments in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. He has a Masters degree in Development Economics from the University of Sussex.

Nik Nikunj Soni
Nik is the Board Chair of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, which he co-founded in 2007. He has worked extensively on economic and public financial management issues across the Pacific since 1996, and has authored papers on a wide variety of topics ranging from revenue reforms, expenditure management, macroeconomic modelling to more general development papers on issues like drivers of change and governance reform. Nik has held a wide variety of senior advisory and in line positions in the region including as the senior treasury advisor to the Vanuatu government and the Director General of the Ministry of Finance in Timor-Leste. He is currently Senior Public Financial Management Adviser at the Timor Leste Ministry of Finance. He has an MPhil from Oxford, and outside of public policy is also the chair of the largest renewable energy NGO in Vanuatu.

Kaliopate Tavola
Kaliopate Tavola is a Fijian economist, politician and diplomat. He served as Fiji’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and prior to that as Ambassador to Belgium (also accredited to France, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg and Greece, as well as to UNESCO and the WTO). He recently served as the first High Level Representative of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Odo Odo Tevi
Odo Tevi is Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Vanuatu to the United Nations. He previously served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu from 2003 to 2013, before which he was Government Economist between 1998 and 2003. He holds a Master of Arts in Development from the University of Sussex and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Papua New Guinea.

Afamasaga Toleafoa
After serving 20 years as a diplomat and then Member of Parliament in Samoa, Afamasaga Toleafoa currently provides consulting services in public sector reform and governance and is a regular contributor to regional media. He is Chairman of Samoa Farmers Association and of the Pacific Islands Farmer Organizations Network.