Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, gave a speech on
February 14, 2014 regarding Australasian aid and international development
policies. Bishop has been the minister since September 2013 and is currently
the only woman in the cabinet and the third woman in Australian history to hold
the title of Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Additionally, she has been a
Member for Curtin in the House of Representatives since 1998 and was a minster
in the Howard Government until 2007 (Juliebisop.com.au). Bishop’s speech primarily
focuses on instituting a more effective and efficient aid program to produce
economic growth and alleviate poverty. To keep peace and prosperity, Bishop
will focus on Australia’s “neighborhoods,” the Indian Ocean Asia Pacific, and
will strive to continue to be the most responsive humanitarian donor:
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“I am really pleased to be at this workshop because I hope
that we can all share the same goals. We want to find ways to make Australia’s
aid program work more effectively, to help improve people’s lives. We want to
find the very best ways to alleviate poverty and improve economic outcomes and
build stability and prosperity, particularly in our region the Indian Ocean,
the Asia Pacific…
To the conference participants, your research gives us
insights on changing landscapes of development assistance. And there is no
doubt that it is changing. I take issue with those who focus on quantity not
quality. There are many examples in domestic policies where billions of dollars
have been poured into programs only to find that standards have gone backwards.
So, what we need to do is focus on new ways of achieving better outcomes in the
area of overseas development assistance and aid.
Official development assistance now provides a relatively
small share of total finance for development. Economically sustainable
communities and economies are the key to the alleviation of poverty and
increasing living standards. It has been called the new aid paradigm. Our aid
program can succeed in this new paradigm because when we get it right we can
make a real difference and in doing this, focus on our region.
Now we have not always got it right. I find it utterly
distressing to continue to see aid programs in Papua New Guinea, for example,
that are not having the desired outcome. I find it distressing to know that
despite the fact that Australia invests about half a billion dollars each and
every year into Papua New Guinea, it will not meet one of its millennium
development goals, in fact it is going backwards. It is not on track to meet
one of the seven millennium development goals. And I am not just focusing on
PNG, this is an issue across our region.
We need a more effective and efficient aid program. We need
an aid program with a strong culture of accountability and performance and the
new Government is committed to a new strategic direction for Australia’s aid
program which will enhance the work we are already doing in the region and will
focus on the region.
So let me be clear from the outset. It is in Australia’s
national interest to deliver a responsible, affordable and sustainable aid
program. A program that will promote economic growth and reduce poverty. Now we
have had to make some pretty tough decisions this year. We inherited a
deteriorating budget from the previous government - cumulative deficits of $123
billion. Now that means ladies and gentlemen that $123 billion more than
incoming revenue has been spent. The previous government was on trajectory for
government debt to reach $667 billion. So the government was borrowing from
overseas to pay our bills and our aid program – borrow overseas to send
overseas.
So we have to get our budget under control, and this means
that the aid program, like every other government program, had to be put on
sustainable footing. Our domestic budget outlook meant that I had little choice
but to reduce this year’s aid budget and I did so by reducing it by about $100
million over last year. That means the tough decisions had to be made but we
are still one of the most generous donor countries in the world. We remain
among the world’s top 10 despite being the 12th largest economy and just 53rd
in the world for population – so per capita we are still among the world’s top
donors. But what I have done is stabilized the budget at $5 billion per annum.
It will increase in line with inflation, so it will go up by CPI. This will
provide certainty, predictability of funding for our partners, for the
recipients and will put the aid budget on sustainable financial footing…
We are refocusing our efforts, placing our aid program more
clearly in the context of Australia’s national interest. And that is why the
aid program is now part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We have
integrated the separate aid agency – AusAid – into the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade. We have created a single department with responsibility for
advancing Australia’s interest in diplomatic trade and development context.
It is in Australia’s national interest for there to be peace
and prosperity in our region -it is part of our national interest. So that is
why we are consolidating our efforts on our neighborhood – the Indian Ocean
Asia Pacific – where we can make the biggest difference. This is where we have
a responsibility to foster peace and prosperity…
Aid for Trade will be fundamental to our policy approach.
For every single dollar invested in Aid for Trade, an estimated $8 in
additional exports will be created in developing countries. That is a good
return on our investment so the program will have a much stronger focus on
promoting economic growth than it has in the past years. This means using more
of our aid to create jobs, to build schools and investing in productivity
enhancing infrastructure and spending in our region…
We recognize that one of the best ways to promote economic
growth in our region is to empower women and girls. And that’s why we have
appointed former Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja as our Ambassador for Women and
Girls. Her role will be to visit our region, to represent Australia in regional
and global forum, to promote the empowerment of women and girls. When women are
able to actively participate in the economy, the formal labor markets, than
everyone prospers. So we are going to support women starting businesses,
building their skills, and stepping up to leadership roles.
We will invest in health – particularly health systems – so
that men and women and children can access basic health services and live
healthy and productive lives. I made it clear to the PNG Government that we
will move away from direct service delivery because that is the responsibility
of a mature sovereign government…
We are committed to playing a strong role in responding to
disease threats in the region – Malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS – which can create huge
economic burdens to developing countries. We are also working with governments
in our region to ensure [inaudible] and growth is inclusive of the poorest and
most disadvantaged, making sure particular consideration is given to improve people
with disabilities, those living in remote and rural communities and ethnic
minorities.
And as I said, we will continue our humanitarian work across
the globe. I think Australia will continue to be the most effective, and
responsive humanitarian donors – certainly in our region – and we demonstrated
this in recent times in our response to natural disasters in the Philippines,
Tonga and Vanuatu.
In fact, I visited the Philippines just after the impact of
Typhoon Haiyan. We provided $40 million in financial assistance, in money, but
our contribution went much further than that. We had 550 military personnel on
the ground in the Philippines, we had aircraft – C-130s – to bring supplies and
enable the aid workers to travel around the Philippines. Yet none of that
counted in the assessment of our aid contribution to the Philippines – this is
something else we are going to change.
When other countries include in their aid program assessment
the amount of say military or private sector funding and Australia doesn’t, we
only count the actual dollars we provide, we are comparing apples with oranges.
I was surprised to find that Australia was listed as the fourth largest donor
to the Philippines typhoon effort. Given
that there was $40 million dollars, 550 personnel, ships, planes and I thought
“Gee, other countries must have done an extraordinary job”, but when I looked
at their contribution, it was their military contribution. Well, if I added
Australia’s military contribution we would be by far the largest donor. Now,
this isn’t a question of who is the largest donor, but let’s compare apples
with apples before people start criticizing the Australian Government for not
responding. Have a look at what we have actually provided and compare it with
those who are said to be number one or two and their contribution was their
military contribution – fantastic – but let’s compare like with like.
The private sector is already involved in development
assistance and I want the Australian Government to work more effectively with
the private sector, recognizing that private enterprise is engine of growth. So
we are going to explore innovative models for private sector partnerships for
development, moving away from the old way of doing things, the more traditional
aid program approaches. One example is the $20 million that Australia is
contributing to the Philippines Public Private Partnership Centre. Our aid
dollar is helping prepare tenders to award 26 public-private partnership
infrastructure projects that are valued at about $7 billion. So the work will
now inform a similar pilot scheme in Indonesia, as part of the project to
tackle infrastructure shortfalls in the APEC region…It has been estimated that
$8 trillion worth of infrastructure is needed in the APEC region along by 2020.
So we are funding such infrastructure such as the Cao Lahn
bridge in Vietnam - that is going to transform local economies. It will enable
people to travel more easily, to access education, employment and markets for
their trade. We are supporting programs like the Pacific Business Fund that I
recently launched in the Solomon Islands to foster business growth in
developing countries. The fund will be managed by the Asia Development Bank –
it will deliver capital and mentoring to local businesses who are seeking to
export and expand. Our contribution of $15 million will allow the fund to work
with at least 100 high potential companies to expand and diversify their
operations, leverage $15 million in finance from commercial institutions, and
ultimately it is estimated create up to a thousand jobs…
A great example in our region is our partnership with
Carnival Cruises to provide increased economic opportunity through the tourism
industry. The Pacific is a magnificent tourism magnet and cruising is big
business. Carnival brings over a quarter of a million tourists to the Pacific
each year. But we need to bring local industries to Carnival and that is what
we are doing through this partnership to increase local earnings. So Carnival
for example has agreed to source the bottled water from a Vanuatu supplier and
is in discussions to source local coffee. This might seem obvious but it wasn’t
happening. So the opportunities are going to stretch much further than just
sales – taxi drivers and coffee shops and local tourism operators, fruit and
vegetable growers on a lot of the islands all have the potential to benefit
when connected to the tourism supply chain. And that is what we need to do to
get local businesses into regional and global supply chains. Carnival is
working to hire Ni-Vanuatu crew – they have over 100 ships visiting the Pacific
annually and up to 200 crew on board these ships – the potential for job
opportunities is huge…
While we are in the process of finalizing our benchmarks, I
will share my thinking on some of the broad parameters.
We will be assessing performance across all levels of the
aid program. At the strategic level, we will assess the entire aid programs
progress against key goals and priorities – a small number of high level targets.
We will use performance benchmarks at the level of individual programs to
assess the relative effectiveness of our portfolio of investments, and these
assessments will determine how the aid level are allocated. Then at an
individual assessment level, we will ensure funding is directed to those
programs, those investments that are making the most difference and that
poor-performing projects or poor-performing deliverers are either improved or
the funds are redirected.
We will also review the way we assess the performance of our
delivery partners – multi-lateral organizations, NGOs and contractors – to
ensure there is a stronger link between performance and funding and I am really
pleased to report that the initial consultations indicate there has been broad
agreement among our partners across the sector to this approach.
We will also be working with partner governments to ensure
the millions of dollars spent each year on programs are used responsibly in
those countries and effectively. That is why we are looking to introduce mutual
obligations between ourselves and our partner countries, so both partners are
held accountable for outcomes.
I have mentioned Papua New Guinea, it is a country for which
I have very deep affection. It is a vital partner to Australia and the region,
but PNG is a good example of how our relationship is maturing from the
aid-donor-aid-recipient to a much more sophisticated economic partnership and
our aid program should reflect that. So we are currently undertaking a review
of the Papua New Guinea aid program in conjunction with the PNG Government to
reflect that change. Both our governments recognize that aid investments need
to target areas where Australian expertise can have a real impact on
sustainable and inclusive economic growth. A more prosperous Papua New Guinea
will improve the quality of life of its own people and have economic and
security benefits for the whole region. This is an example of aligning
Australia’s foreign policy interests with our development assistance goals.
Our aid program needs to respond to a radically changing
international environment. Over a billion people have been lifted out of
extreme poverty over the last 20 years. There are a number of key countries in
our region – including Indonesia and Sri Lanka and Vietnam – that are
experiencing strong economic growth with ODA now representing a tiny fraction
of their GDP. But over the years ahead our aid dollar will continue to shrink
relative to domestic budgets in our partner countries in Asia, and that is how
it should be. We should be seeking to do ourselves out of a job! At the same
time, many of our neighbors in the Pacific do remain fragile. There has been
stagnated growth and very unclear long-term prospects…
Take China for example, China’s aid budget is now around the
same size of Australia’s. We should be engaging China for not only is it a
growing presence in our region, but we should be doing what we can to
capitalize on our respective strengths, using our combined weight to bear
overcoming some of the development challenges of the Pacific. Through a
development cooperation partnership with China we have taken the first steps
towards working together, importantly to our areas like health and water
management.
For example, we have this tri-lateral cooperation
arrangement with Australia, China and PNG that can draw together the different
strengths of the countries. Australia is a trusted and effective donor, China
is a newly developed economy and PNG’s
economy is going through a transition. And we have begun a collaboration
to target malaria in PNG. Australia and China have technical expertise to offer
PNG in combating this disease and the region of course in the long run will
benefit if we continue to control Malaria. This is a positive concrete example
of China’s active engagement in international development and Australia’s
responses to the realities of the global economy. It is my hope that we can
continue to engage with our traditional donors, with the emerging donors, in
programs that we can make a difference.
For those of you who work in international development, we
can see the hardship, the despair, the poverty and despite our best efforts,
too many nations will fail to meet the millennium development goals. But I do
remain optimistic because I do know that Australia’s work overseas does change
lives. I am sure we can do better and that we can make a much bigger
difference. We will remain committed to our overseas aid program but we want to
see value for money – “effectiveness” is the watchword. And we will support the
organizations and those who deliver continued success and we will focus where
we can have the biggest impact in our region.
Aid is a powerful tool in our statecraft. It is ultimately
designed to protect and project Australia’s broader interests and that is to
ensure greater prosperity, sustainable growth and opportunities to lift the
standards of living of everybody in our region. This is how we are going to
make a significant impact in the Indian-Ocean Asia-Pacific and I hope that you
will join with the Australian Government on this journey.”
Julie Bishop, Minister of Foreign Affairs, “Opening Address-2014 Australasian Aid and International Development Policy Workshop,”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Australia, February 14, 2014. www.foreignminister.gov.au.
--Sam Saccomanno
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