A key element of the Australian government’s new international development policy, released in August last year, was the promise to revitalise the regional and country strategy process through new “development partnership plans” (DPPs) which will all be finalised in the course of 2024. According to...
Category - Australian government aid
Australia to achieve membership of an African development bank (at last)
The biggest disappointment of my time with responsibility for the Australian aid program was the failure to finalise Australia’s application for membership of the African Development Bank. The decision was made, we had the money, the legislation was drafted and approved (unanimously) by the...
Equipping Australia for development impact
It’s rare that you get a death, marriage and birth all in the same moment. But ten years ago, in one fell swoop, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) died, its people and functions were hitched to those of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and an integrated...
Did Labor inflate future aid by over $3 billion?
In a word, no. But that’s what the Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham claimed during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on 26 October. The claim was elaborated in a Coalition media backgrounder released the same day which said: [T]he Government’s claimed...
Australia can lead on regional food security
Conflict, climate extremes and COVID-19 have disrupted food production and supply chains causing...
Does Australia’s new development policy leave you feeling...
Right from the start, reading the new Australian international development policy left me tense. It...
The Australian aid objective: COVID-19 and China
The various and evolving ways in which the Australian government has described the objectives of...
Development finance review: harmony in a medley
A year after DFAT began its review of development finance, a report has been released. Its key...
The promise of blended finance as Australia steps up on climate
In the May federal budget, the Australian Government announced it would lift the cap on its...
A short history of Australian aid policy launches
The release of the Albanese government’s new international development policy is now being...