As reported here, the 2014 Humanitarian Assistance Report puts a disturbing spotlight on Australia’s paltry and diminishing humanitarian effort. We are ranked 19th out of 20 for humanitarian generosity and we are ranked first for the country that cut humanitarian aid the most. That’s not surprising given that we cut half a billion dollars from our aid program last year, but it’s disappointing. And Jo Spratt shows that both Australia and New Zealand are contributing less than half of their fair share of humanitarian support to Syria.
The Government’s commitment not to increase aid beyond the rate of inflation means that any increase in humanitarian aid would have to come at the expense of other aid programs, but there is nevertheless a strong case for an increase. The recently released ODE report on humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa confirms the life-saving role of this form of aid. And the recently released ANU Poll public opinion survey underlines the overwhelming public support for the humanitarian function of aid.
The 2011 Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness argued that humanitarian aid should increase from 7 to 11 per cent on the basis that: “this is an area of growing importance, which is globally underfunded and where Australian performs well.” That would take us from about $350 million at present to $550 million, and put us in the top ten humanitarian donors, which is where we should be.
Joel,
Thanks for the comment, and query. I’ve got several responses. First, we know that several hundred dollars have been set aside in this year’s budget (see our budget analysis from earlier in the year), so there would be no problem finding more humanitarian aid this year.
Second, longer-term, we should in my view be looking to make our aid program more focused on disasters and humanitarian responses. I don’t have many sectoral or country preferences, but this would be one. We know it is an area where aid generally works, and it is underfunded, and there is strong public support. We’re not going to be able to give large amounts to Indonesia indefinitely. I would be looking to the humanitarian budget to soak up the excess. In twenty years time, we might have a very small aid program to Indonesia, but we should still have a very large (and much larger than currently) humanitarian aid budget.
Third, I do view humanitarian aid as a benchmark for all aid, or even for all government spending. Of course it would be great if we could actually help societies develop, but let’s face it, we’re often not very good at it. I think it would be useful if we always asked of any proposed expenditure: is my $x million of TA/capacity building/system strengthening/scholarships/research worth more than $x million of humanitarian aid. It’s a difficult question to answer, but a useful one to ask.
Regards,
Stephen.
Have there been any studies benchmarking humanitarian in-kind aid against humanitarian direct cash transfers (at diff levels)? I’d be keen to see that.
R
The Australian government would probably argue that it is spending a lot on humanitarian assistance, around $3 billion a year, in the form of off-shore processing of asylum seekers. In the view of the current government and its predecessor, this is saving lives and therefore could be considered a form of humanitarian assistance. While some of us may think $3 billion could be spent in much better ways, e.g. restoring our ODA to the target of reaching 0.7% of GNI, that has little traction with our current crop of politicians.
Hi Stephen,
I agree it would be nice to be in top ten humanitarian donors. But where do cut further? Where does the $200m come from in an already stretched program of work?
I would hope that we would not cut from the long-term efforts of building strong resilient education/health/social systems that would make the need for disaster responses less likely. I am not surprised that humanitarian assistance is popular – AusAID, DFAT and others have not really tried to make the case to the public for longer-term system building.
Joel