AUSTRALIAN AID: PROMOTING
GROWTH AND STABILITY
A commitment to aid volume….
• Prime Minister’s announcement at UN
Summit in September
– Doubling to $4 billion by 2010
– Conditional on strengthened governance,
anti-corruption efforts and aid effectiveness
AUSTRALIAN AID: PROMOTING GROWTH AND STABILITY
Outline of the White Paper
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Introduction
Operating environment, values and interests
Strategic framework
Where Australia will work, and why
What the aid program will focus on
Strengthening effectiveness
Aid management
Average annual GDP per capita growth
in the Asia–Pacific region, 1995 to 2004
Operating Environment
• Major reductions in poverty in Asia Pacific
• But….
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significant disparities between and within countries
existing challenges intensifying, new challenges emerging
high absolute number of poor
a region of developing countries, many are fragile (e.g.
Solomon Islands, PNG, East Timor), and Indonesia
Development lessons
• Economic growth central to poverty reduction
• Countries that have integrated grow faster than
those that have not
• Growth by itself not sufficient – needs to be
sustained and shared
• Institutions matter
• Each country’s path is different
• Aid only small part of the development equation
• Poor aid can do harm
• Need new approaches to fragile states.
Strategic Framework
• Objective
• Asia Pacific focus
• Overarching principles of gender equality, fully
untied aid and partnership
AUSTRALIAN AID: PROMOTING GROWTH AND STABILITY
Thematic Initiatives
• Growth – infrastructure : ideas and funding.
• States - incentives for good performance up to 10% of total aid
budget over time.
• People – major scaling up of health, focussing on women and
children, and education to get more children into school for
longer and a better education. HIV/AIDS, pandemics, malaria.
• Regional stability – regional responses to transboundary
threats.
Effectiveness
• Office of Development Effectiveness and Annual
Review linked to budget cycle
• Output based aid
• Country strategies covering all ODA,
performance frameworks and link to allocations
• Anti-corruption
• Australian engagement – research, linkages
• Partners: delegated responsibility, leveraging
multilaterals
External communication is a critical
function to support aid effectiveness
It does this in two main ways:
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As a critical component of development activities: to
inform, educate and assist in changing behaviour
Informing taxpayers and aid recipients about our aid
program.
The risks of not communicating:
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Our aid is less effective
We lose public support and therefore political support.
Conclusion
• Geographic flows: rebalancing to Asia from Pacific
• Not just more aid
• Different way of doing business for AusAID and other
Australian agencies
• Greater focus on effectiveness, less contracting out
• More rigorous approach to corruption
• Greater use of partner government systems and
processes
• Very different aid program and agency in 2010, more
effective, more transparent and more integrated.