Comments

NGOs often get a hard-time on the accountability front. I've done it myself. But to add some balance to the above comments, while I'd certainly like to see greater accountability from NGOs, I'd also like to see a great deal more accountability from private contracting firms who win aid-contracts, and any other entity that receives aid. Why pick on NGOs? Apparently 'aid for trade' takes-up about 17 per cent of the current aid budget. (See Robin Davies' post 'Separated at birth' for this statistic.) In this context, I'm not sure what is wrong with Australian NGOs asking for an increase in funding from two per cent to eight per cent. They provide important contributions to development, across a wide-range of sectors and often get help to people others don't reach. This may be imperfect and there is plenty of room for improvement. But if you scratch beneath the surface of any entity involved in the 'aid industry', you'll find the same. The cash benchmark is an interesting idea, and Blattman's blog certainly points out the potential and pitfalls of this. But how to benchmark every single aid-funded activity against simply giving cash, in the absence of the cash-giving counterfactual? We'd be spending more money on RCTs than programmes if we had to prove the counterfactual for every single intervention. For sure, over time the evidence-base will build-up but for now, perhaps it is more realistic to ask the question than be expected to prove it.

Seasonal Work is the best program in the Pacific with Australia and other countries. I am in a search to earn extra to cater for my family's need. I am a single mother who is unable to depend on my fortnightly wages and had an high interest to take part in seasonal work to develop relationship with other people as well as to earn extra. I still believe seasonal work provides best for others and I want to be part of it.

I really wanna first of all thank you Mr. Sam Koim for taking up this initiative and carrying out this most important job for the welfare of our country. As an ordinary concern citizen of this country I credit your for your intentional program against the corruption in our country. From my personal opinion and belief, I think that this is God's will that this anti- corruption agency is in-place. I really love my country and I really wanna see a change in my country so in that case I am really supporting you morally. What you are doing now can continue and progress.

That Chris Blattman blog post is excellent (as is the segment on This American Life discussing cash transfers). His emphasis of impact assessments is spot on, hopefully bringing more accountability from traditional aid sector partners, such as the NGOs affiliated under ACFID.

'Labour shortages' are the common excuse cited by various industry groups. Yet you very rarely see any, let alone good, empirical evidence to support these claims. While I don't agree the recent 457 visa changes were a positive thing, the Australian Dairy Farmers - like many other lobby groups - are making a mountain out of a molehill. Some additional regulations have been added but there wasn't any major changes to eligibility in accessing potential migrant employees. Dairy Cattle Farmer and MIxed Livestock Farmer both <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/csol.pdf" rel="nofollow">remain eligible under the program</a>[pdf]. Personally, I see constant change as the best way to hamper future growth in the SWP. Instead of continuously expanding eligibility through industries and pilots, we need a proper explanation to find out what exactly is limiting the program in the current form. At the moment, any future 'fixes' will be at best educated guesses. For instance, who knows if the <a href="http://ministers.deewr.gov.au/oconnor/seasonal-worker-program-expanded-across-wa-accommodation" rel="nofollow">recent addition</a> of the whole of Western Australia for the accommodation trial will see a substantial increase in numbers.

Great and punchy post, Ashlee. This is exactly what I thought after scanning the document from my twitter feed. Interesting how the first big point was all about accountability (holding the Government to account to taxpayers), but then increased flexibility, funding and cutting 'red-tape' for the NGO sector, under the axiom that the accreditation and code of conduct is enough accountability and checks and balances to ensure that effective aid is delivered. By definition, holding the Government to account also means the Government holding every organisation it provides public funding to also to account, and while flexibility, innovation, and dynamism with less bureaucracy is great in theory, there is an absolute dearth across the board of sound, public and transparent impact evaluation evidence which would need to accompany it in practice. Slight tangent, but definitely a useful way to view this 'what organisations and programs should aid money fund?' question, is this ongoing discussion that poverty reduction programs, whether delivered by private contractors, NGO contractors, the public service itself or others, should be bench-marked against just giving cash instead. It's hard to conceptualise in case of emergency assistance, humanitarian, rights-based and human security related aid (which I'd personally contrast to human development aid, the former being a precondition for the dynamic process of the latter) which most NGOs focus on, but still a useful framing for thinking about this, I think. These are a few juicy articles which I really enjoyed on this: http://chrisblattman.com/2013/08/19/is-it-nuts-to-give-money-to-the-poor/ http://international.cgdev.org/blog/new-documents-reveal-cost-%E2%80%9Cending-poverty%E2%80%9D-millennium-village-least-12000-household http://www.millenniumvillages.org/field-notes/the-costs-and-benefits-of-the-millennium-villages-correcting-the-center-for-global-development

Hi Jonathan, Many thanks for your informative blog. My company, <a href="http://www.developingmarkets.com/" rel="nofollow">Developing Markets Associates</a> (DMA) manages the <a href="http://www.sendmoneypacific.org/" rel="nofollow">SendMoneyPacific</a> and <a href="www.sendmoneyasia.org" rel="nofollow">SendMoneyAsia</a> websites that you have referenced in your article. I thought I'd add a couple of points about the positive impact that government and donor supported impartial websites can have. Thank you for highlighting the role played by migrant focused remittance comparison websites. SendMoneyPacific has been online now for nearly 5 years. Over that period we have recorded a fall in remittance costs levied by Money Transfer Operators in some of the more competitive remittance corridors of over 50% (e.g. MTO costs from Australia to Samoa are down by 58%). SendMoneyPacific has been able to help to reduce remittance costs, increase transparency and thus take up of formal channels as a consequence of the strong government support that AusAID and New Zealand's MFAT New Zealand Aid Programme have been able to provide. This support has helped to make the website a household name in many Pacific communities in Australia and New Zealand, and now the USA, as well as across the Pacific islands. Over 66,000 Pacific people follow SendMoneyPacific on Facebook and regular interaction with migrants at community events, on radio shows and in many other ways, has helped to encourage use of lower cost products and new remittance technologies. AusAID recently provided funding for the launch of a sister website, SendMoneyAsia, which is now helping Asian migrants to make informed choices for remittances when sending money home from Australia to Asia. SendMoneyPacific has benefitted from increasingly proactive regulators who have helped to pave the way for new low cost remittance products and technologies (mobile, online, prepaid card) to be launched and adopted by migrants. Which in turn, is helping to generate competition with the more established banks and MTOs in the region.

The Coalition hasn't said the aid minister would be in Cabinet. Most likely they would do as Labor has done, appointing a minister within the foreign affairs and trade portfolio but locating them in the outer ministry. By the way, the Coalition has now indicated they would also appoint a separate minister for trade (currently one of Julie Bishop's hats), which is unsurprising. The trade minister would presumably be in Cabinet, with the foreign minister, which makes it all the less likely that an aid minister would be. Not to mention that the small business minister will be occupying one of those scarce chairs! On your other two questions, I doubt there's anything about the way aid procurement is done that would be regarded as disadvantageous to small business, but I can't be sure. And no, we haven't seen any analysis of the Vote Compass results in relation to foreign aid but we're on the case.

Thanks Michael for your comment. It would seem to me that there are two ways to look at the Carnival Agreement. One is that it is a backward step because of its bilateral nature. The other is that it is nevertheless a step forward along the private sector engagement road. If the latter is correct, then it is a modest step since there is no agreement in place involving a financial commitment. We thought that was worth highlighting. I allow for both possibilities in the concluding sentence of the post, but the heading indicates that I come down on the side of it being a backward step for the reasons given in the body of the post. I don't think it's fair to say I'm inconsistent. In that Canberra Times article you mention, Michael, I talk about the ECF in that same paragraph you quote from saying that "It, or something like it, would be a good candidate for adoption..." I'm all for private sector engagement, but I'm sure you'd agree that how you go about it is also important.

The main purpose of the policy brief, and the above blog post, is to compare and contrast the policies of the two parties that are viable in this basic sense: one of them is likely to be able to form a government and control the aid program. However, as you note, the brief covers the Greens' policies in some detail and also makes the point that, unlike the two major parties, the Greens have sought to articulate a clear aid and development policy framework for the coming term, and deserve credit for that. The brief also notes that the Greens 'will have a critical role to play in the next parliament in ensuring effective scrutiny of the aid program and also ensuring that it does not easily fall prey to commercial or other sectional interests'.

Thanks for the comprehensive overview Robin. I think a crucial question is will the Minister for International Development be a member of Cabinet under the Coalition - have they made a commitment to this? Should the Coalition be elected, the Cabinet discussions around budgets ('waste'), restructuring and implementation of stated policy will be fierce ahead of the Coalition's first budget which one would expect to be fairly harsh - how would International Development fair without a seat at the table? For example the Coalition has stated the Minister with responsibility for small business will be in Cabinet under the Department of Treasury. One of the stated small business policies is that all Departments will use "tender procedures and procurement processes that do disadvantage small business participation and instead actively encourage it". What are the implications for aid delivery and growth in aid in light of this? One more question, have you seen (or discussed with the ABC) the results from the "Vote Compass" foreign aid question?

Stephen - Interesting post. I wonder about the balance and consistency of your remarks both in the article and over time. In your Canberra Times article of 2 April 2013, you criticise AusAID - “Despite a strategy committing it to work much more with the private sector, AusAID has done little more in recent years than talk to business.” Yet in response to a judicious next step, an MOU with a major corporate in the region, your criticism increases, rather than abates. Then you criticise the agreement because “no dollars have been attached”. Yet in the following paragraph you criticise the bilateral approach. How much more strident would your criticism have been in this para if there were dollars attached?