Comments

Hear hear.

Thanks Robin, for eloquently expressing what many of us past AusAIDers are feeling. I, for one, am still proud to say I worked there.

Robin, THANK YOU! Thank you for honouring the commitment, the courage, the vision and the sheer tenacity of AusAID staff over the years. The Nonviolent Non-cooperation phrase made me smile and remember how many gender and conflict sensitive policies and programs have eventuated because people didn't give up. I have so many AusAID staff to thank for their support and encouragement. We wait and watch.

A beautiful analysis of what Australia will lose with the loss of AusAID. I have met and worked with a number of AusAID staff- both Australian and national staff in developing countries. Smart, committed, compassionate people all of them. I hope DFAT and elsewhere find good use for their professionalism and passion.

Thank you from me too, for this and all your recent writings about the sudden death of AusAID. I have relied on you for insights and calm analysis throughout! While institutional structures shouldn't really matter if the aid program is genuinely doing good things, and might be slightly crazy to feel sad about the demise of a public service agency, it's hard not to feel concerned about what may be signalled by this still-perlexing change. What the priorities and culture and incentives will be for the aid program from tomorrow onwards - that is what is important, and still seemingly unknown.

Thank you Robin. Congratulations on a masterful and heartfelt piece. AusAID won't get get a better eulogy. Witty, moving and pertinent. Those of us that invested in the ethos of AusAID understand what is being lost. While AusAID always had to adapt and change and it was sometimes hard to pin down exactly what was being achieved, nevertheless we know that the disintegration of AusAID represents the loss of a civilising influence in Australian public life.

Stephanie, I have to say, I agree with most of your comments. Technical solutions and training, on their own, will not address the issue of maintenance (or service delivery, for that matter). That’s exactly the point I highlighted in my talk. I agree that attitudinal change is needed, both at the political level, and at the managerial level within service delivery organisations. How does that happen? I think we’re basically entering into the area of political economy of reform, and the fact is, donors have found it very difficult to address political economy constraints. I don’t think that there are easy answers - if there were, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I would say that I consider “attitudinal change” to be, primarily, an internal and organic process. There’s a limit to what donors can do to support change. Such change also takes time. There are case studies of successful management (and, asset management) in the Pacific, and it’s important we learn from them. I don’t agree that it is all “doom and gloom” – there is a great deal of diversity in the Pacific in relation to infrastructure management. One case study I’m currently writing about is the Fiji Electricity Authority. Improvement in FEA management (and maintenance) came about over a ten year period, due to massive organisational re-structuring beginning in 2001; political support for reform; and supportive regulatory changes that began in 2005 and continued under the Bainimarama Government. There were setbacks along the way, but overall, the FEA’s performance improved dramatically (it now has in place sound asset management systems, and dedicates sufficient resources toward maintenance). There is also diversity on the planning side. Cook Islands and Vanuatu are two countries that in recent times have turned down funding from the donor X to which you refer. In Cook Islands, the donor X-funded project that is underway is being managed very proactively by govt – it is clear that lessons have been learned from past mistakes (and briefly, I’d note that poor planning is an issue with more than just one donor in the region!)

I hate to sound cynical, but Matt's conclusions mirror those of numerous reports by development partners over the last 20+ years. We all know infrastructure requires ongoing maintenance, that bureaucracies require technical skills to manage it, and that budgets need to include recurrent expenditure allocations - the governments know this, the development partners know this, the researchers know this. And yet, time after time (with a very few notable exceptions) we get the same failure of maintenance, the same rush to have non-DAC donor X throw up a new building with no ability to finance the ongoing costs (particularly when the concrete starts to rot), the same diversion of funds to other purposes and the same failure of bureaucracy. So the real question is: given these needs, in infrastructure and other service delivery areas, how do we create an environment where governments, with assistance from donors, are able to meet them? What needs to change? It's not about project management, or training, or twinning, or donor funding of eternal road maintenance programs, or other supply-driven solutions. It is about sweeping organisational and attitudinal change within the Pacific. Where do changes need to take place and how does the Pacific community make them happen?

Thank you Professor. Thank you very very much for elaborating the issue. Whew!!! I do not know what is going through the PM's mind. We need immediate change now!!! I wish PNG was Egypt. He would have been out by now....

Robin and Michelle – Thanks a lot for your effort on this, and congratulations to the Centre on a remarkably accurate forecast for total aid in 2012! I wonder if you might be planning to do this exercise earlier in the year next time? If so we would be happy to reference your estimates in our annual press release on the preliminary ODA numbers, which as you say come out in April. Otherwise, we will bear your research in mind when considering projections. Your point that CPA estimates have not proven good guides to the following year’s ODA numbers is well taken. We may need to re-think how we present the CPA numbers in the press release, and check where the forecasts are going off-track. However, we still think CPA forward estimates should be of more use to developing country governments than ODA estimates. CPA focuses on resources over which developing countries have some control, leaving out debt relief and some in-donor costs. Our Forward Spending Survey provides a lot more detail about planned CPA numbers than we can put in the press release, including estimates of spending by multilateral agencies. Overall, I find your estimates for 2013 ODA very plausible, and can only admire your boldness in specifying your prediction to within a $1 billion range. Let’s see how it pans out, but a pause on the way down seems right, given that most donors will be trimming but the UK ODA will surge. By the way we saw a similar “dead cat bounce” in total DAC ODA after the last major global downturn in the early 90s, with aid falling sharply in 1993, but rising slightly in 1994 before dropping again for another three years. On the processes behind the fall, I would urge attention not only to recession but to its impact on revenue. For me the budget balance is the middle term between recession and aid cuts. It also explains the “amplification factor”: being discretionary spending, aid is prone to larger cuts than other items in fiscal consolidation exercises, as I mentioned in my talk at the Centre in July [https://devpolicy.org/in-brief/simon-scott-does-development-assistance-have-a-future/]. All the best to your and your colleagues – you are doing a marvellous job of covering the development scene! Simon Scott, Head, Statistics and Development Finance Division, OECD

My favourite quote from Behind the Beautiful Forevers: "What appeared to be indifference to other people's suffering had little to do with reincarnation, and less to do with being born brutish. I believe it had a good deal to do with conditions that had sabotaged their innate capacity for moral action. In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea of a mutually supportive poor community is demolished"

Hi Ashlee. I agree - very interesting that aid wasn't mentioned in Varghese's recent speech, especially given its focus on soft power. Thanks for pointing it out. For me, it further confirms that development assistance is not being connected to the bigger picture of Australia's foreign policy. Another example is the lack of attention paid to the role of development assistance in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. And just to pick one small issue, surely the attention paid to affixing Australian logos to aid-funded infrastructure implies development assistance is relevant to public diplomacy?