Comments

"I also note that the word sustainable is missing from the principles released last week when compared to the Downer formulation." I think that Ashlee has identified where the real impact of policy change is aimed. Her concluding question bears more examination.

Thanks Stephen. This blog really got me thinking, which is great. I'm not yet quite sure I have my head around your argument. I'm one of those people who think that motivations lead to objectives, which lead to action on the ground, etc. So personally I'm not sure if it is possible to separate out or ignore motivations. But your blog raised lots of questions for me. To add to your call for clear language, I wonder if it is helpful to avoid the phrase 'national interest' altogether, instead pulling out the components of national interest. Maybe it would help to talk about commercial, strategic, geopolitical (which might be the same as strategic), development, humanitarian, cultural and/or religious interests, at both the motivational and the objective level? You start to suggest this at the end. This then raises two questions: a normative question (should we used aid for non-development reasons), and a descriptive question (what do we actually use aid for). So then we also need to talk about the 'oughts' and 'ares': what should be and what is. This relates to what Jane said, how does all this actually filter down to shape development impact on the ground? Also, can it be argued compassion for others is actually a component of the 'national interest'? If the national interest is a collective representation of how individuals in a country want to project themselves overseas, compassion could be part of this. But perhaps I am naively (or wishfully) trying to redefine something that has a well-understood, even if not well-articulated, definition. Anyway, lots to think about and I'd love to hear what others think.

This is interesting food for thought Stephen. One of the questions that springs into my mind when looking at the principles is--who are the integration principles actually coming from and what is their intended audience? Have AusAID and the taskforce driving the integration had actual advice on what the new government wants the integration to be, or are they just trying to guess at what the new government might want? If it is the latter, then it makes sense for them to just fall back to the Downer era statement in the hopes of pleasing the new political gatekeepers, stripping the overall objective of any possible controversy or points of ideological difference. If the principles are actually a directive from the government or informed by discussions with the new government, then perhaps we can see them as a product of skepticism on the generosity of the Australian constituency when it comes to aid--the same thinking around low public support for aid that perhaps drove the pre-election Coalition announcement on aid budget cuts. Are Australians really so miserly that they will only support an aid program if they are clearly told that the motivation for it is their own interests? I can't be quite that cynical, but perhaps the new government is (or perhaps AusAID thinks the new government is, if this is all a grand guessing game). I also don't think semantics like this will do anything to appease the anti-aid crowd anyway. But this could be a driver behind the language in the principles. I also note that the word sustainable is missing from the principles released last week when compared to the Downer formulation. This is interesting considering that sustainable development is such a big push in the post-2015 framework discussions. Perhaps it was deemed too politically risky to include in the integration principles in light of the Coalition government's policies on carbon pricing, etc? Once again, it would be interesting to know where these principles are coming from. Is this AusAID and DFAT making a pitch to the new government, or is it coming from the top?

I was trying to work out why the political temptation might be to revert to the Downer (B) overall objective, where national interest is put forward as a motivation but not as an objective. This is what I came up with: National interest as a motivation: this helps maximise the political mileage from funding our aid program by painting it as something that's best for Australians at the end of the day. National interest as an objective: perhaps it's a little controversial, and thus politically dangerous, to concede that national interest does drive actions taken under the guise of aid. Although this may be a fact of life for those in the aid industry, the existence of the trade-off between the national interest and development outcomes is probably not something that the ruling party would want to emphasise. So maybe there is tension here between what is a good and accurate overall objective statement from the point of view of carrying out the best possible aid program vs. good from the point of view of domestic politics?

My goodness me!! •"[Parsing is the] lost art of identifying all the components of a text, and once one of the fundamental exercises that tested and informed pupils in English. To parse a phrase such as 'man bites dog' involves noting that the singular noun 'man' is the subject of the sentence, the verb 'bites' is the third person singular of the present tense of the verb to bite, and the singular noun 'dog' is the object of the sentence." (Ned Halley, Dictionary of Modern English Grammar. Wordsworth, 2005) "in the national interest" "for the national interest" "of the national interest"....??? I love devpolicy with my morning coffee - but this one is a bit beyond me! ! I'm less concerned about how the government frame their aid policy and more concerned about how that translates into development programs on the ground that change people's lives. I'm waiting for that information with my next morning coffee....

Remittances do not "account for" 4.5% of Fiji's GDP. Remittances may be "equivalent to" 4.5% of GDP but remittances, per se, are not a direct component of GDP. Remittances may be part of GNI if they are sent back to Fiji by a normal Fiji resident who is employed on one of the temporary worker schemes, or working on contract overseas and expected to return to Fiji at the end of their contracts (e.g. medical & hotel personnel, security staff, peacekeepers, military personnel, seafarers etc). These type of remittance would be classified as "factor income" and would appear in both the balance of payments and GNI; other "casual" remittances from families who have migrated and are living overseas would be classified as private transfers and would be included as such in the BoP. These are important economic distinctions in the types/sources of remittances and the way in which they are treated in national accounts and BoP.

Ashlee I loved your article. Thanks for your candour and humour - I am already thinking about how I can incorporate your insights into some work I am doing in the humanitarian sector (and I thought I was liberated on women and blood). Here's to the breaking down of this old taboo - and the recognition that this is the blood that nurtured us all in utero. And Sean who ever you are, bless the man (as well as the woman) that can talk about menstruation without blanching, particularly when taboos around it can inhibit girls and women's empowerment profoundly.

"Of girls in Malawi, 82% did not know about menstruation before the onset of menarche." Jeebus. This really shocked me. Great read, Betts!

Thanks to Tess, Alan and Garth, for making similar comments to what I would have. To add, in New Zealand, I would argue (and have, often) the reintegration of the aid programme into foreign affairs has not been a success when viewed through a development lens. And isn't that what aid is for - development in developing countries, with a focus on poverty alleviation? Also, New Zealand's Minister McCully said he was keen to give NGOs more funds. But as service providers. This is a model that views NGOs as advancing the government's development goals, not a view that values NGOs as entities in their own right, with specific visions, missions and values. A service-provider approach threatens NGOs' crucial role of 'voice' - acting as advocates for the people who aren't able to access the halls of power, or supporting marginalised individuals to gain access to those who make the decisions. This role is at least a rhetorical component of many NGOs' values and if we are committed to development, it is a role that needs defending and strengthening, particularly as aid's development focus gets blurred with non-aid foreign policy priorities.

RE: being an ODA 'minnow' in Africa, Australia can still contribute through targeted programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa (47 countries), which is the poorest region in the world (not withstanding successive so-called 'development decades') and is 'off-track' to meet MDG goals for eradicating hunger (MDG1), child mortality (MDG 4) and maternal health (MDG 5)...and others. One of the key strategies for development is building capacity from within. AusAID had been running programmes geared towards capacity building through providing scholarships for African students--who then return to their country of origin to put their credentials/skills gained in Australia to work in their home country. These programmes are now at risk, which would be a shameful outcome of AusAID 'restructuring'.

I have been following the blogs on this with interest and it is good to see so many people getting involved in the conversation. Of course some of the key people are noticeable by their absence not just from this conversation but generally - maybe they are practising their active listening skills. I have a concern with a couple of the points raised here. One is "So clearly the decision to locate aid and trade together appears to make more sense than leaving it in the responsibility of aid bureaucrats who have no or little trade or private sector experience." This seems to imply two things, one is that the 'trade bureaucrats' have lots of trade and private sector experience - I don't know if this is or is not the case and the other is that it seems to imply that it's ok to give aid to trade people even if they don't know anything about development...it's easy to think that 'anyone' can do development but it's patently not true and has already been demonstrated in other 'whole of government' initiatives - the one I am most aware of is using AFP to support policing but I am sure there are others. I have done my fair share at sighing over inefficiency, waste and ineffectiveness on the part of AusAID over the last 16 years. But in my opinion there is nothing as wasteful, inefficient and ineffective as the creation and continuation of a situation in which decisions cannot be made, budgetary or otherwise, relationships cannot be progressed and all that is able to flourish is uncertainty and frustration.

Jiesheng, IDA eligibility is based on income per capita and may also include a few other considerations around creditworthiness of a country - it has no linear relationship to the number of those living on under $2 per day in a country. That is how middle income countries can still have vast quantities of people living in poverty, numerically far in excess of smaller yet poorer countries. You may need to look more closely at the statistics and the definitions to understand this - I'd start with the World Bank's Povcal database. There are also numerous reports based on this information that will explain this data to you.