The Australian government has identified engagement with the private sector as critical to the promotion of economic growth and as a key plank of its ‘new aid paradigm’. This panel brings together speakers who from a variety of perspectives will discuss the potential and actual role of the private sector in development in different parts of the region. This will include introducing the work of Seed Pacific, an Australian initiative that seeks to leverage private sector investments to address development challenges in the Pacific, as well as hearing about the cutting edge enterprise of SKYEYE Ltd, a Samoa-based company using GPS to map parts of the Pacific, and an innovative corporate-supported scheme involving family and sexual violence reduction strategies in the Papua New Guinea Highlands.