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From Joseph Cheer on The AusAID-Carnival agreement: a backward step
This is a really interesting discussion and one that we at Monash University have engaged with quite heavily. Both Tess and Nik were at a symposium on tourism and sustainable livelihoods we conducted in Port Vila in July 2012. There is no question that if islanders are to be in a better position to participate more profitably in tourism (and cruise tourism specifically) a public-private-community sector model may well be the best way to go. Whether tourism in general has had a net-positive impact on the ground is contentious and largely unsubstantiated owing to a lack of consistent, reliable data (notwithstanding the one-off and ad hoc approaches over the years). Leaving it up to the private sector largely to enable tourism to be a vehicle for development and poverty alleviation is fraught.
One of the biggest issues related to this discussion is that despite the fact we know very little about tourism's overall impact (economic and non-economic impacts), there has always been, and continues to be a great deal of enthusiasm from all quarters to promote its merits. Recently, NZAID in particular have thrown their support behind the sector. There is no question that on face-value, tourism is critical to Vanuatu's economy. However, whether it is of benefit holistically (in an economic and equally non-economic sense) is another thing. I join the line of sceptics and remain unconvinced that ni-Vanuatus have reaped an optimum return from tourism - I have been examining this issue quite closely for several years now. Growing visitor numbers and tourist expenditure does not equate to stronger development impacts on the ground.
Having said that, Vanuatu is no different to the long line of developing countries that court the tourist dollar with little cognisance of what the overall "cost" is. As my good friend and former Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre Kirk Huffman says - "tourism for tourism's sake" should not prevail. In my research, I have advocated that a more deliberate, informed policy-oriented approach to tourism expansion is needed - not more ad-hoc, piecemeal attempts. Throwing money at tourism initiatives without reconciling some of the critical knowledge gaps, underpinning issues and seemingly intractable constraints first, is poor development practice. Having said that, I remain open-minded to the possibilities.
From Marianne Jago-Bassingthwaighte on A new journey on a worn path? The aid cuts in context
Ben - thanks for this really useful comparative analysis of traditional donors and their trend (back) to conflating aid and national interest objectives. It shows Abbott as less radical than he might otherwise appear, if you accept the premise that turning from poverty alleviation to sustainable development (whose?) can still reasonably called an international development policy. I must say that just because everybody is doing it doesn't make it good or equitable policy.
I'd like to know more. In my experience emerging donors make a big deal of mutuality and cooperation not by focussing on their own business and economic interests but on similarities of culture and level of development - and therefore their ability to offer locally appropriate, respectful aid that is more aid effective than that offered by traditional donors. The data are not always encouraging on whether they manage to do this, but the rhetoric at least has huge appeal to traditional aid recipients. It seems to me that the shift to greater national and economic self interest by donors is less a lining up with emerging donors than a return to the national interest emphasis (this time on much more explicitly - as you note) that was evident pre the 2006 Aid White Paper.
Your final sentence has a lot in it - am keen to know what the benefits of the Coalition's approach might be even if sustainable economic development (for the poor) is its goal. Could it in fact create more favourable conditions for greater development effectiveness?
With thanks.
From Adrian on From expansion to crisis in Australian aid: reflections on the Coalition’s aid cuts
Thanks for this article.
It is great and a very fascinating read.
From Patrick Kilby on Why are Queenslanders against increasing the aid budget?
If you go to the <a href="http://www.acfid.asn.au/resources-publications/publications/community-support" rel="nofollow">ACFID website</a> there is a table of number of NGO donors/supporters per Federal seat, an interesting set of variations bewteen outer and inner city seats among others. In some inner city seats nearly half the electorate supports an NGO/s.
From Patrick Kilby on The other scale-up: Australian public donations for development over the last decade
What is particularly interesting is that if you look at NGO aid spending from their public donations (excluding govt funding) it has been around 0.03%-0.04% of GDP since the 1970 (see Lissner 1977 "Politics of Altruism" for the early figures), a remarkably stable figure, and an interesting observation on public altruism for overseas aid.
From Joel Negin on From expansion to crisis in Australian aid: reflections on the Coalition’s aid cuts
Hi Robin,
Thanks for this analysis. I am surprised to see no comments but I guess everyone is a bit shell-shocked by the announcement and/or was waiting for the election to happen before (trying) to respond.
As I imagine all of devpolicy's readers, I have lots of thoughts and reactions and I am not quite ready to formulate them for public consumption. So we are all indebted to your analysis for getting started.
Aid has become an easy target for cuts - not just in Australia but elsewhere as Ben Day's blog notes. Perhaps to some degree we do need to look inward as a development community and realise that we have not sold our story well enough. Much of the community continues to use the poverty reduction paradigm that gained so much voice through the MDGs and Make Poverty History campaigns. And perhaps - after a decade - that does not resonate sufficiently with the wider community. I am loath to exclusively frame aid as an instrument of foreign policy and security interests, but perhaps we as a development community need to do more thinking in that area. I was interested to see that Bob Carr's first reaction was that the aid cut would "weaken Australia's security."
I will stop there as I am not sure how much space blog replies are allowed!
Given that these cuts are going to happen, perhaps it is time for a devpolicy.org series on "How I would cut $4.5b from aid" so that your readers can outline where they would make cuts. It might be cathartic for some to find lots of savings in items such as returning the $375m per year from immigration to AusAID (as you suggest) and cutting all aid to any country with a GDP per capita above US$3000 (including Indonesia and Vanuatu which would save A$700m per year).
From Jon Fraenkel on New constitution for Fiji
Scott - what your USP student told you was inaccurate. Rabuka's party, the Soqosoqo Vakavulewa ni Taukei (SVT) did not demand to be granted a majority in cabinet but the party did make a series of rather extravagant demands as the price for inclusion in the cabinet that the Supreme Court later in 1999 judged to amount to a refusal to participate. The true story is told in the Supreme Court judgment on the case that was later brought by SVT party leader Inoke Kubuabola - see http://www.paclii.org/fj/cases/FJSC/1999/8.html. Also if you look at some of the later court judgments on breaches of the power-sharing provisions, they at one point revisited that decision and suggested that the court might better have ruled otherwise.
From John Whittle on Australian aid stakeholder survey now closed with 358 responses
The results of this survey are going be more interesting in the light of the proposed cuts by the coalition following the election.
I felt the speed of the increase in recent years was perhaps too rapid to be manageable and effectively implemented. However, such cuts actually causes more volatility to the aid program, reduced efficiency and effectiveness in country by country delivery, and limited effects on the MDGs.
Lets see the results soon.
thank you
John Whittle
From Scavenger Tatuke on State, Society and Governance in Melanesia
Nowadays, very controversial, sad and interesting issues especially the conflicts and the political instability in our region is a boiling topic. Iam from Solomon Islands and would like to learn more about the conflicts especially in this region. As a young Solomon Islander, i want to see the young generation to seek a new pathway for a better future as we all take the leadership role from our colonial era-politicians, learn from our pasts and move forward. Hope to learn from your very informative articles in this blog site. Many thanks.
From Gary Juffa on Australian aid to PNG: no net benefit?
I found your article good reading. Information is power, how it is used requires responsible management, many journalists have failed to do this and in the pursuit of a "good story" have failed check, research, investigate leads, information sources and credibility to establish FACTS. No one wants to have to digest lies and rumor and baseless statements. Even those told by those claiming to be experts, academics and supposedly learned persons.
Thanks,
Gary Juffa
From Denis on The other scale-up: Australian public donations for development over the last decade
Really useful article Sophie. Thanks for posting. What struck me was the relatively small size of the Red Cross. Less than four percent!
From Henry Sherrell on Australia, a migration giant