How should aid agencies evolve? Recipients give their views
Are traditional development assistance providers facing unemployment? Apparently not, according to new research by Devpolicy in conjunction with the OECD as part of the ‘Agency of the Future’ project.
Devpolicy’s Robin Davies and Jonathan Pickering condensed some of the key points that came out of the survey with 40 developing country governments in a recent blog post. The findings have also recently been released as an OECD Development Cooperation Working Paper.
The research finds that most partner countries are counting on ongoing access to multilateral sources for large-scale financing. They are reaching out to non-DAC bilateral donors, both in recognition of their comparative advantage in economic infrastructure and in order to hedge the risk of aid volume cuts and abrupt exits on the part of DAC providers. And they want DAC development assistance to play a more enabling or facilitative role than at present. But they still see a substantial role for DAC donors for at least the next decade.
Evaluation forum
Join us on 29 April for our third annual forum to discuss Australian aid evaluations. The forum will focus on two recent Office of Development Effectiveness (ODE) reports on Australia’s response to humanitarian crises (in the Horn of Africa and Syria, respectively) and on DFAT’s new Performance of Australian Aid 2013-14 report.
Presenters will include authors of the reports, DFAT management and external discussants. Jim Adams, Chair of the ODE’s Independent Evaluation Committee, and Dereck Rooken-Smith, ODE Head, will also speak. Register here.
Aid budget breakfast
How will the government cut the aid program by 20 per cent? The 2015 budget will be perhaps the most important ever for aid. We’ll be holding our third annual aid budget breakfast the morning after the budget, on Wednesday May 12. Register here.
Bumper response to PNG Update
We’ve already received more than twice as many responses to our call for papers for the PNG Update this year than last. The annual ANU-UPNG PNG Update will be held in Port Moresby on 18–19 June. The deadline for papers has been extended to Tuesday 31 March, so you only have a few days left if you haven’t yet submitted a paper. There will be a workshop for paper writers on 1 May: details to follow soon. The draft program will also be announced shortly. More details on how to submit an abstract are available here.
Upcoming events
2015 PNG Update
18-19 June, University of Papua New Guinea. Details here.
Australian aid evaluations: program performance and humanitarian responses
Wednesday 29 April, 9.30am – 1.30pm. Register here.
2015 aid budget breakfast
Wednesday 13 May, 9am – 10.30am. Register here.
Blog highlights
Perspectives on the AIIB: from China, and for Australia.
Vanuatu’s resilience after Cyclone Pam.
Development workers should engage with religion.
Senator Lee Rhiannon’s legislative plans to make Australian aid focus more on gender.
A review of J.’s latest aid fiction.
On the blog
Up and running – DFAT’s innovationXchange by Jonathan Pryke and Camilla Burkot
Maximising effectiveness of Gavi aid: when less can mean more by Camilla Burkot
Putting gender at the centre of Australian aid by Lee Rhiannon
Why Australia should join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank by Shahar Hameiri
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: a Chinese perspective by Katherine Harper
How should aid agencies evolve? Views from developing countries by Robin Davies and Jonathan Pickering
Peter O’Neill’s statecraft: a skilful politician by Jan Kees van Donge
My island home: the first week after Cyclone Pam by Tess Newton Cain
See no religion, hear no religion, speak no religion by Denis Dragovic
Honour amongst aid workers by Terence Wood
The changing composition of PNG’s foreign workforce by Carmen Voigt-Graf
In brief
Weekend reading and listening (plus a bonus talk to go to next week)
Funding for TB and malaria product development partnerships: Australia’s back
More aid cuts? It’s news to Julie Bishop
Abbott on Australia’s modest aid cuts
Hope amidst the darkness: the 4th anniversary of the Syrian crisis
Australasian Development Economics Workshop call for papers: March 30 deadline
First interactive map of Chinese aid to the Pacific launched
This is the fortnightly newsletter of the Development Policy Centre at Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, published every second Friday.
