Ausaid

Want to know how Australia’s $4.836 billion in Australian overseas aid will be spent in 2011-12? Finding out is not easy of you are a journalist or documentary filmmaker and do not want to rely only on Department of Foreign Affairs press releases and what is to be found on the DFAT and AusAID websites.

“I am committed to enhancing the transparency of our aid program,” writes Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd on the DFAT website. “When people are able to access information, they are better able to hold those who are managing their money — whether AusAID, partner governments, or international organisations — to account.”

Noble sentiments - but how does Rudd’s professed commitment to transparency and accountability stack up when it comes to providing media access to the aid programs on which this money is being spent?

Continue reading "We need to know whether aid is helping in Africa" »

Tony Abbott’s suggestion of cutting aid to Indonesia to fund Queensland flood reconstruction was met with immediate fury from aid experts, who declared the decision morally bankrupt.

Yet Mr Abbott’s announcement has raised an important issue that should not simply be brushed under the carpet: the need for aid effectiveness.

When he announced the proposed cut, Mr Abbott said funding would be “deferred” subject to a full review of the effectiveness of the program.

Continue reading "Let’s be smarter about the way we deliver aid" »

Over recent years, Australia has doubled its financial commitment to foreign aid.

Yet our aid program has remained starved of attention from the government, media and community at large.

On Tuesday, Kevin Rudd sought to rectify this by announcing a five-month independent review of the effectiveness of Australia aid.

Continue reading "Australia’s foreign aid is starved of attention" »

This week Kevin Rudd is in New York City, this time not as Kevin 747, or even Kevin ‘07 but rather as Kevin 0.7.

In the year 2000 world leaders got together to discuss how we could eradicate poverty. The result was the heralded Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) a set of aspirational targets designed to alleviate poverty by 2015. This included goals such as halving hunger, progress on infant and maternal health and universal primary education.

Each developed nation was asked to give 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) toward achieving these goals, Australia has only committed to 0.5per cent.

Continue reading "Hi, I’m Kevin 0.7 and I’m here to help" »

Although I am closely involved in the aid and development sector, I was pleased to read Monday’s News Limited critical pieces by Steve Lewis in the Daily Telegraph and the Adelaide Advertiser.

Negative publicity is never good for any sector. However, the recent pieces in Australia’s newspapers are a positive sign of the fact that Australians are engaging with the global movement to take action on extreme poverty.
 
In my role as a development educator, I have been witnessing this change in our societal perspective on a daily basis. Australians are no longer simply asking how many aid dollars are being allocated to help the billions of people living in extreme poverty: we are now questioning the effectiveness of this spending. We are finally applying the age-old adage of ‘quality over quantity’ where it matters most, in the lives of the world’s poorest.

Continue reading "Getting more bang for our foreign aid buck" »

When rock stars Bob Geldof and U2’s Bono stomped through the United Nations a decade ago, demanding rich nations stump up billions of dollars in extra foreign aid, the world took notice.

Even John Howard signed up to this ``Make Poverty History’’ chant, determined to avoid being seen as a global Mr Scrooge.

But with Australia preparing to double annual foreign aid spending to $8 billion-plus by 2015, the time is right to pause and take account of how we are managing the current program.

Continue reading "The business of foreign aid needs a good audit" »

When you think of Canberra’s more secretive agencies, Australia’s spy agencies – ASIO and ASIS – usually come to mind.

It’s likely that the agency responsible for delivering bikes to poor Aids ravaged Africans, in a country with little or no public transport like Namibia, is not top of the list.

Yet as today’s News Limited investigation shows, AusAID is an agency with a secretive culture that rejects the accountability and transparency it demands of aid recipients such as the Bicycle Empowerment Network.

Continue reading "AusAid could tell you, but then they’d have to…" »

The Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is due to visit Australia in early March and will be addressing both houses of Parliament.

It’s not that common to have a foreign leader address the Australian Parliament but it will be repeated later in March when the US President Barack Obama is expected to do the same.

Australia-Indonesia relations are always complex. At the leadership and government level they remain strong as the Howard Government had left them, despite frustrations in official Indonesian ranks over the Rudd Government’s handling of the Oceanic Viking saga and the ongoing issue of the Sri Lankan asylum seekers that remain in limbo off a West Java port.

Continue reading "Our role in defending democracy in Indonesia" »