There have been a number of recent articles in the News Limited Papers that have been highly critical of the Australian Aid Programme and I thought that I should further explain ActionAid’s position.
Before even addressing some of the issues raised in the current debate it is important to note that Australia is not a major international donor to the poorest countries by international standards and this fact is consistently incorrectly misrepresented in the mainstream media.
In Peter Singer’s recent and excellent book “The Life You Can Save” he described how a survey in the US found that a large majority of respondents believed that 20% of the US Gross National Income was being used for overseas aid and when questioned on what would be an appropriate contribution most felt that 10% would be appropriate. This is an interesting situation when one considers the US contribution to overseas aid is a pathetic .02%!
The charity begins at home lobby would be surprised and possibly amazed to discover that in Australia, just 33 cents of every $100 earned is used to assist the poorest countries and the two billion people who survive on less than two dollars per day. To its credit the Government has committed to increasing this figure to 55 cents in every $100 we earn although there is still no plan from the Government on how it will reach the internationally agreed benchmark of 70 cents in every $100.
Having said that, this is not just about the quantity of aid. There are problems with how the Australian Government delivers it’s assistance particularly with the technical assistance delivered by private companies and an increasingly controversial scholarship program. There are serious questions about the effectiveness of these two approaches and there is an urgent need for the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) to commission an immediate and independent review.
There is little evidence that aid through Australian Companies is good aid and whilst the scholarship program might provide privileged kids from developing countries with an Australian university education and Australian universities with substantial income it remains to be seen if this has some, or indeed any, impact on people who are poor. Hopefully a review of the scholarship program for its development effectiveness will prove that scholarships have an impact on the poor but I have my doubts.
There have been some positive developments and amongst them is the increase in Australia’s funding to Africa in the recent budget. We now gvie 200 million to Africa per year although this is only half the amount that the government provides to PNG each year. There are approximately one billion people on the continent and only seven million in PNG so it is difficult to understand how we can justify this anomaly other than the rationale for large amounts of aid to PNG is an extension of the charity begins at home model.
Ultimately there is a need to re-focus our aid programme and to develop a focus on poor communities, particularly women, and building the appropriate governance arrangements to reposition the State as the ”protector, respector and fulfiller” of people’s human rights. In particular we must focus on the nearly one billion smallholder farmers who live in dire poverty and represent most of the worlds poor.
These smallholder farmers, and particularly small holder women farmers, hold the key to ending poverty as they will produce the food that feeds their communities and themselves and end poverty for good. It’s about time the government started finding out what smallholder farmers and women in particular need from the programme and we are very keen to help!
Tags: Africa, aid budget, ausaid, Milennium Development Goals
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Well said @archielaw! http://bit.ly/9eOGiV
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Annoyed by those News Limited stories on wasted government aid? Read this: http://bit.ly/aAahjj
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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Archie, Australian aid to PNG makes sense on many levels, including (in no particular order):
(1) historical duty to PNG as a former protectorate
(2) strategic interest in preventing failed states in our region
(3) Australia knows more about the region and therefore is likely to be more effective in PNG and this region than elsewhere
(4) Africa is a focus of many donors that are much larger than Australia – we would likely be duplicating a lot of efforts
(5) Other donors largely aren’t interested in helping PNG.Also, technical assistance is targeted at building the ability of governments to function and implement sustainable governance arrangements. You have to address all levels of government and society to bring about change – just focusing on farmers while freezing out governments wouldn’t get you very far.
(also: you require an email address to post a comment…. i really hope the address doesn’t get published!)
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Thanks for the feedback which is really appreciated. I agree with you that there are a variety of good reasons for Australia to provide assistance to PNG and I’m a strong proponent for continued Australian engagement in PNG and the Pacific in general. My concern is that this engagement doesn’t come at the expense of an enhanced engagement in Africa which is where the vast majority of the World’s poor are struggling for their rights. I’m not necessarily suggesting that we downgrade our assistance to PNG and the Pacific but one alternative could be for all increases in the aid program on the journey to .5% (and hopefully .7%) are allocated to Africa. You’re correct that there is a lot of donor engagement on the continent but I would argue based on my experiences across the continent with the UN that the investment and engagement from donors is not even close to matching the vulnerabilities of the African people and the challenges they face and Australia should be doing a lot more on the continent than we currently are.
I would never suggest that we should be freezing out governments, on the contrary I am arguing that the State needs to be at the very centre of human development efforts to enable the State to assume its role to fulfil, protect and respect it’s citizens human rights. The challenge is on how to do this most effectively. Is it best to keep pouring in technical assistance from western countries such as Australia or should we be looking at enhanced south-south cooperation to enable governments of LDC’s to increasingly learn from governments that are succeeding in building this capacity eg Vietnam. I don’t have the answers but I do think there should be a broad ranging conversation amongst development practioners in this country on lessons learned and innovative and creative solutions to develop a new vision for Australia’s assitance to governance in LDCs, with governance not just being government but about the relationship between the government as the duty bearer and its people as rights holders.
The reason I am emphasising the need to focus on smallholder farmers is that they are the vast majority of the so called bottom billion. The starting point needs to be a clear understanding of people centred development based on a continued conversation with the poorest people that reflects their needs and importantly their aspirations for the future.
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I think we’re essentially agreeing here. I’m still somewhat skeptical of whether Australia really would be best placed to scale up in Africa, or if we should stick to our comparative advantage in our region, but perhaps we could engage more in Africa by working through established international organisations. It would also be a way to effectively use the increased budget without greatly increasing the management overheads.
I think that south-south cooperation is a good idea, although there are some obvious capacity challenges – newly-effective bureaucracies are unlikely to be willing or able to give up their highest performers for long-term secondment to other countries, especially in the numbers that would replace a significant proportion of Western TA … but i could easily be wrong (i actually hope so!). I guess it may be possible in some cases if Australia is willing to foot the bill.
I think there is an evolving increased focus on the MDGs (as a shorthand for helping the bottom billion), especially in the last year.
Helping the poorest communities find their voices is vital, I agree. I guess what i’m trying to say is that – perhaps in response more to the recent articles than in rebuttal to you – the best approach, in my opinion, will address all levels of society and government. No one part holds the power to solve everything. This is why working at the highest levels of government is as important as feeding the poorest. Australia needs to learn to deal with the fact that it may feel less virtuous and not make as many pretty photos of smiling children, and is a long, complicated, frustrating, _vital_ process.
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Thanks for the fantastic feedback and I think that you’ve raised some very important and possibly critical issues during this exchange. Some I agree with and some I don’t but I’d be really interested to hear from others reading this post. I’m particularly interested on views on whether Australian Aid should be increasingly directed to Africa or whether regional considerations in the Asia Pacific should take precedence?
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