Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, Hon Bob McMullan MP reports on Improving the Quality and Quantity of Our Aid and a New Pacific Focus

Date:  20 May 2008

Improving the Quality and Quantity of Our Aid

During the 2007 election campaign, Labor committed to improving both the quality and the quantity of Australia’s aid program.

The Government remains committed to increasing the aid budget to 0.5% of GNI by 2015.

The Government also remains committed to using the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for assessing the success of our aid program. Given that we do not have an unlimited budget to work with, the MDGs provide a frame of reference for assessing the best uses of taxpayer funds to achieve development outcomes. They also provide transparent, public benchmarks against which the progress of our program can be measured.

As part of our commitment to improved aid quality, the recently released first Annual Review of Development Effectiveness provides greater transparency for our aid performance. The Review has helped to identify areas where we can improve the effectiveness of our program, including doing more to address gender equality and better linking our efforts to improve national economic management and basic service delivery.

New Pacific Focus

The election of a new government has brought a change of focus and approach to the aid program. This new focus can be seen in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Port Moresby declaration during his trip to Papua New Guinea in March.

Many Pacific nations face unique challenges due to their small size, remoteness, limited natural resource and economic base, and their vulnerability to extreme weather events. In many Pacific Island countries, progress towards the MDGs is off-track, underemployment is a growing problem, and limited or non-existent access to services remains a problem for many.

However the Pacific Economic Survey 2008 does show that the economic performance of several Pacific countries is improving. In particular, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands are now growing at about six per cent and if these levels of growth can be sustained they have a real chance to alleviate poverty.

Achieving our shared goals will require a new approach with our Pacific Island neighbours, and on 27 March the Prime Minister announced this new approach - the Partnerships for Development. The Partnerships will be based on mutual respect and understanding, and emphasise our shared ambition to achieve growth, development and stability. The Partnerships will be based on jointly agreed, long-term aid priorities with responsibilities for both partners. These partnerships will focus on results, rather than inputs, with agreed benchmarks used to measure progress towards our shared development goals.

The Partnerships approach to development will allow us to deliver on our commitments to improve the quality of Australia’s aid program and focus on achieving the MDGs, delivering real results in the Pacific and providing accountability to the taxpayers whose money we ultimately spend.