Effectiveness

Australian aid effectiveness: tools and reports

How effectively aid is given is as important as how much aid is given, where it is given, and what it is given for. How effective aid is not always easy to say, but there is plenty of material for those interested in learning more.

In this section, we will direct you to tools and reports that assess the effectiveness of Australia’s aid.

Australian aid stakeholder survey

In 2013, the Development Policy Centre conducted the first Australian Aid Stakeholder Survey. It surveyed 356 stakeholders in the Australian aid program, from the senior executives of Australia’s biggest NGOs and development contracting companies, to the officials of multilateral, partner government and Australian government agencies.

Some of the key findings on Australian aid effectiveness in 2013 were:

• The aid program was viewed as good and improving.
• While there was overall satisfaction with the geographical and sectoral focus of the aid program, a wide range of aid effectiveness weaknesses were identified.
• High staff turnover was identified as the most serious aid effectiveness weakness, and slow decision making as the second most serious.
• Strategic and commercial interests were perceived to have significant weight as aid objectives. Combined, they were perceived to have more weight than poverty reduction, and more weight than they deserved.

The full 2013 report and various summary documents are available here.

In 2015, a second stakeholder survey attracted 461 respondents. It identified that:

The full results from 2018 are available here, and are summarised on the blog.

Independent aid reviews

In 2011, the government commissioned an independent review of the Australian aid program. The purpose of the review was to thoroughly examine the aid program, determine whether the program’s systems, policies and procedures at the time were as effective and efficient as they could be, and to give advice on how to make the program more strategic.

The review panel found that “by the standards of donors generally, Australia is an effective performer”, but that there were problems that needed repairing in the aid program, particularly in the context at the time of the review, when Australia was aiming to meet a 0.5% of GNI target for aid by 2015-16, which did not eventuate.

The review panel made 39 key recommendations for improving Australia’s aid program, ranging from the need for a comprehensive overall strategy and reduced fragmentation (i.e. reducing the number of countries Australian aid focuses on), to recommendations on improving whole-of-government approaches, relationships with partners, transparency and communications.

You can read the full report here, or the executive summary here.

The 2011 review was not the first review of the aid program. Previous reviews included: the Jackson Report (1984), the Simons Review (1997), the 2006 Core Group Report (here and here) that led to the 2006 Aid White Paper. The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has also conducted various audits of the aid program.

Aid performance framework

The Australian government has used different frameworks to measure the performance of Australian aid. Until recently, the government reported against a 2014 framework, principally by annual Performance of Australian Aid report.

In May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government released a new performance framework for the Australian aid program, along with a strategy document, Partnerships for Recovery, on Australia’s development response to the pandemic.

The three-tier performance framework will report on the overall context, annual results and effectiveness of Australia’s COVID-19 development response efforts against the objectives set out in Partnerships for Recovery – health security, stability, and economic recovery. It also sets performance indicators for global programs and partnerships, such as those with multilateral organisations. The performance framework also commits to improve transparency, in line with the methodology used in the Development Policy Centre’s transparency audits, as detailed above.

More detail on the performance framework is available here.

Investment and country-level reporting

At the aid investment level, DFAT monitors performance of all its aid investments valued over $3 million annually through self-assessed Investment Performance Ratings. These ratings measure performance on a 1-6 scale against “effectiveness”, “efficiency” and “gender”, where 4 is adequate.

In addition, Final Investment Performance Ratings are undertaken at project completion. Whereas assessments for ongoing investments and the responsibility of the relevant DFAT officer, these final assessments are assessed centrally by DFAT. In 2020-21, according to Devpol analysis the average effectiveness rating for FIPRs was 3.7 (below Adequate [4]). This raises issues about the performance of the Australian aid program that require further investigation.

Under the 2020 performance system, country and regional program performance is assessed through Progress Reports against the corresponding objectives and indicators set out Response Plans. The full set of country and regional Progress Reports for 2019-20 and 2020-21 can be found here.

The Progress Reports replace the Annual Program Performance Reports (APPRs), which are available up until 2018-19 and can be found here.

Whole-of-government reporting

Under the three-tiered performance framework, DFAT publishes whole-of-program results annually against a set of “Tier One” (Indo-Pacific Development Context), “Tier Two” (Australia’s contribution to development) and “Tier Three” (Operational and organisational effectiveness) indicators. These are reported in DFAT’s Annual Report. There is also a standalone report on Tier 2 indicators for 2020-21.

Prior to 2021, DFAT published an annual Performance of Australian Aid report. The sixth and final report showed that in 2018-19, 93 per cent of aid investments were assessed as satisfactory for effectiveness and 89 per cent were assessed as satisfactory for efficiency.

Previous Performance of Australian Aid reports are available here. Previously under AusAID, two Annual Review of Aid Effectiveness reports were published in 2011-12 and 2012-13, which can be found here.

Evaluations

The aid program produces various evaluations of its programs, which are collated here. Annual evaluation plans and outcomes are published here.

In the past, a separate office within the Department called the Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) conducted thematic and program reviews with independent oversight, however this unit was closed in 2020. Past ODE reviews and evaluations are still available online here.

Parliamentary inquiries

Occasionally, parliamentary committees conduct inquiries into particular areas of Australia’s aid and development policy and practice. These inquiries take submissions and testimony from members of the public, NGOs, government officials, academics and other stakeholders. Inquiries on aid are typically conducted by either the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, which has a subcommittee on Foreign Affairs and Aid, or the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, which looks at both referred matters and proposed legislation. In recent years, inquiries have examined the role of the private sector in development, bilateral aid to Papua New Guinea, Australia’s relationship with Timor-Leste, and overseas aid more generally.

OECD DAC peer reviews

Each OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member is peer-reviewed approximately every five years. According to the DAC, these reviews have two main aims: to help the donor country understand where it could improve its development strategy and structures so that it can increase the effectiveness of its investment; and to identify and share good practice in development policy and strategy. The process is led by two reviewers from other DAC member countries, and takes around six months, with wide consultation.

The most recent DAC peer review of Australian aid took place in 2018. Overall the review was very positive. It commended Australia’s active global engagement on development and its focus on fragile small island states and disaster risk reduction. Efforts on mainstreaming gender were also commended. However it strongly critiqued the successive cuts to the aid budget since 2013, and recommended increases to transparency following the DFAT integration.

Mid-term reviews of Australian aid are carried out in by the OECD DAC in between the main reviews every five years. The mid-term review was carried out in 2021. The review is yet to be published on the OECD website as per usual practice.

Before 2018, an earlier OECD DAC review of Australian aid was carried out in 2013–prior to the AusAID integration into DFAT and while the aid budget was still in its scale-up phase. Overall, it was very positive, praising reform in the aid program, and transparency initiatives at the time. It argued that Australia was “in a very strong position to deliver a growing aid budget effectively and efficiently”.

Other measures

Aid is only one contribution a country can make to global development. The Center for Global Development publishes an index of the contribution countries make to development in a variety of ways, not only through their aid policy, but also through such policies as trade, migration, and climate change. In 2020, Australia scored 8^th on this index (out of 40 countries rated), but when this rank is adjusted based on wealth it drops to 11

The Center for Global Development and the Brookings Institute publish regular joint reports on the Quality of Official Development Assistance (QuODA). The QuODA reports assess how donors support the development of institutions in recipient countries, reduce administrative burdens for recipients, maximise the efficiency of their aid, and are transparent. The 2018 QuODA data is available here, which enables you to see how Australia ranks against other countries.