Comments

Such a good overview, excellent capture of the feelings that accompany this transition. As I sit writing reports for a new entity, I'm struggling for a short-hand name, but perhaps AFKA (the agency formerly known as AusAID) will do - which has the benefit of slightly existentialist overtones...

Robin, an excellent eulogy and as one who has hung around AusAID on the outside (mostly as a pesky NGO lobbyist) for thirty of that forty years it has been remarkable how it has weathered so many storms, but not this one: as we move to a new world order in which global self-interest rules, and the rules and standard setting DAC if not dead is certainly 'pining for the fiords'. The challenge of the first few years of AusAID in the 1970s was to get beyond PNG and notice development, which the 'second wavers' you mention did. To your list of government reports one should add Harries of 1979 which foisted the notion of the development 'project' on us. It also foisted lots of agricultural projects everywhere, including Africa, using Australian approaches and technology (needless to say not a great success); resulting in series of cultural and context mistakes that may well be repeated, as paternalism and self interest re-emerges, and AusAID and broader DAC lessons are lost. Thanks again Robin for a great Obit.

What happened to AusAID was predictable and deserved. AusAID had it coming. Good riddance.

Thank you Robin great piece,

There is no doubt that Ausaid has been responsible for many, many good things that has happened in my country, the Philippines. Now that the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will very soon become operational in 2015, we need organizations like Ausaid in whatever platform ( whether stand alone or embedded in another government agency) to push the aid and trade philosophy that it has been known for and to hold the hands of the countries in the region so they can respond more effectively in the increasing competition where borders in 10 ASEAN jurisdictions will no longer be barriers to trade in goods, services and skilled labor. Soon , the AEC will include its partners like Australia, China, S Korea and Japan...that is a massive market we are talking about... When I was still at the defense department, I know that Ausaid had supported many of our officers thru various scholarships and had contributed to the "shared meanings"so critical to our region... Carry on Ausaid...just don't lose sight of the ball... Thank you, Dr. Carlos

Peter - thanks for articulating so clearly how many of us still working for AusAID feel. Despite it's imperfection and flaws, there was more than one black arm bands being worn on Thursday. As you so beautifully point out, it wasn't for the passing of an organisation but for the passing of an idea.

A beautiful commentary. Ive only known AUSAid from afar but it grieves me to see another organisation swallowed up by mindless short term processes. This is happening in so many places. I understand generational change but I am uneasy about the replacing logics - and how they are used t support thinly veiled vendettas. Why is good sense and sophisticated pragmatism now on the nose?

Thanks, Robin, for speaking so eloquently and perceptively for so many of us. In recent weeks and days I've been struck by just how intensely I have felt the impact of these events. Like so many members of the 'second wave', I left AusAID to pursue broader career opportunities in development. But given the defining place of the institution in the Australian aid scene, I never left its orbit. One way or another - directly or indirectly - I have always worked for AusAID. The broader community of Australian aid practitioners is indelibly linked to the Agency, and what it stood for. Of course, I left for reasons, as did many others. As your piece acknowledges, AusAID/AIDAB/ADAB/ADAA has always had its shortcomings. And all of us know just how much we complained about it - at times deeply and bitterly. Get two aid workers together and you could almost guarantee that the subject would soon turn to AusAID bashing. But, paradoxically, it is just that antagonism that highlights exactly what is being lost here, and why we feel it so deeply: AusAID was as much an idea as an organisation. It was the idea that we worked for; the organisation merely gave the idea a name, and a home. And it gave those of us who believe in the idea a home, too. Not to put too fine a point on it: at times we hated AusAID because we loved it so much. It was a place that linked our personal ideals and aspirations to those of the nation, and the world. AusAID, for all its flaws, was the public institution that gave a home for those of us who suffered under the ineradicable delusion that wanting to be a good global citizen was consistent with a proper career, and the equally persistent folly that a career in development was a means to try to manifest our better selves. So, you can take the boy out of AusAID, but you can't take AusAID out of the boy. And I hope and believe that the idea will survive the organisation.

A well written, passionate and considered eulogy Robin. I have many good memories of working alongside dedicated AusAID staff, including yourself, providing essential humanitarian support in response to a number of natural and non-natural emergencies. AusAID gained many international friends during those hard days of toil.

I perhaps didn't realise the extent to which AusAID has become part of my DNA until it was being taken from me. In this part of the world it is still 31 October so I find myself grasping at what little of myself remains, afraid to power down the laptop so I don't have to see the DFAT logo appear. Thanks Robin to a wonderful homage to "the agency formerly known as AusAID".

Thanks Robin for a perceptive and eloquent tribute to the AusAID that was. Thanks especially for singling out locally engaged staff - often the longest-serving and most under-appreciated. I look forward to your continued insightful analysis of the Australian aid that will be.

Thank you Robin, I really appreciated that terrific homage to AusAID's past.