By Tim Costello
CEO World Vision Australia
The Financial Review, 31 July 2010
In an election campaign so far devoid of foreign policy initiatives, the bipartisan commitment to growing Australia’s aid budget is gratifying. Yet the increasing portfolio size and need for rigorous oversight across AusAID’s development efforts points squarely to the need for a Cabinet-level minister for overseas aid.
Australians want to be sure their aid dollars are being put to good use. Spending on expatriates who demand high benefits for working in fragile states needs to be justified with results. New ways of delivering aid need to be explored, and the cost-effectiveness of aid contracts evaluated. Within five years Australia’s overseas aid program will be among the five largest federal departmental budgets, so the imperative for improved governance and accountability is compelling. Our national agency, AusAID, under the leadership of Peter Baxter, is already reviewing the amount of aid spent on consultants and the factors that lead to effective outcomes. World Vision supports moves towards greater transparency of aid; towards allocations of aid based on meeting the needs of the poorest communities; and ensuring the benefits actually reach those communities.
The fashion of knocking the efforts of governments and NGOs about whether aid works comes and goes. Yet there is widespread support among Australians for our involvement in helping the poorest communities. The establishment of the Office of Aid Effectiveness is is already helping AusAID to show that providing aid leads to positive outcomes for poor people, and that growing and supporting stable communities helps create a more peaceful and prosperous world. Still, there are valid criticisms of the way aid is delivered. Our efforts in 100 countries around the globe at World Vision are constantly under review and we endeavour to be open about attempts that have failed alongside those that work.
Debates aside, there are plenty of interventions that we know work in wealthier societies – immunisation, rehydration, clean water, nutrition, improved agriculture. And we know that acting to improve them in poor communities saves lives.
In AusAID itself there are valid debates about whether delivering aid on a project by project basis or working across an entire sector, such as health or education, works best. But we lag behind the international norms in our system for administering aid.
The UK has Cabinet-level representation of its aid budget, through a Secretary of State for International Development, and a distinct agency in the Department for International Development (DfID) to deliver aid. And despite the UK’s level of public debt, there was unanimous support across the political divide during the recent British elections to retain a commitment for aid to reach 0.7 per cent of gross national income by 2013. The Conservative-led coalition government has ringfenced both aid and defence from savage cuts.
Australia has had overseas development ministers in cabinet. Neal Blewett in the Keating Government, sat in Cabinet as minister for Trade and Overseas Development. John Kerin and Gordon Bilney were also ministers for development. The increasing flow of funds through AusAID led the Government’s audit arm, ANAO, to report that its internal processes were already in need of better systems and increased transparency. That was with present ODA levels of 0.33 per cent of GNI. At the 2015 level of 0.5 per cent of GNI, the annual budget allocation for AusAID will top $8.5 billion and dwarf the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolios under which AusAID now sits as junior partner.
AusAID’s voice needs Cabinet representation alongside its departmental colleagues. Both major parties ought to support the establishment of a Department for International Development Assistance, that champions evidence-based effective delivery of aid, and which is represented in Cabinet by a senior minister.
A more direct line of accountability through Parliament would build public confidence and trust that the goodwill we show to the world as our part of international citizenship is in fact worth the effort.