Nearly three years ago, massive changes were announced for New Zealand’s Official Development Assistance (ODA).
Its focus was changed from poverty reduction to sustainable economic development, and its governing body was made a part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The recent Pacific Islands Forum finally gave us a glimpse into how these changes could impact the way in which the Government thinks about and delivers foreign aid and development assistance.
Before the Forum began, Foreign Minister Murray McCully laid out his thinking on how New Zealand could best support its Pacific neighbours in their own development.
He identified three potential drivers of economic development in the Pacific, namely Tourism, Fisheries and Agriculture, and three enablers of this development including Energy, Infrastructure and Education.
These are the six areas of focus for New Zealand in its aid programme in the Pacific.
This was a marked change for a Programme that formerly engaged in nine sectors of interest ranging from the gamut of social, political and economic issues.
Mr McCully and the New Zealand Aid Programme demonstrated at the Forum ways in which these six areas could be pursued.
Two hundred business leaders and experts were brought together with Pacific leaders and entrepreneurs for an Investment Summit, and private sector leaders from the Pacific were invited to a Dialogue to formulate proposals for improving the business-enabling environment in the region.
In addition, Prime Minister John Key and his Australian counterpart Julia Gillard pledged a joint grant of over $400 million to Pacific educational initiatives aimed at increasing primary school enrolment and ensuring that 75% of children in the region can read by 2021.
These indications of the future for the Government’s foreign aid and development assistance are reasons to be cautiously optimistic.
Maxim Institute’s policy paper ‘Being Better Neighbours’ urged New Zealand Aid Programme to specialise its development assistance to avoid fragmentation. The Paper also said that New Zealand should support development and training of Pacific entrepreneurs and business people and partner with potential development actors in the private sector.
We hope that as the rhetoric and intentions of the Forum become reality that the Aid Programme takes on another of our recommendations, which is to regularly and rigorously evaluate its policies and programmes and to report to New Zealanders and to their development partners on the results of these evaluations.
