The 2009 NZAID 'review': the focus and future of aid from NZ

[abby1]

On March 27 2009, a summit in Wellington (attended by 120 representatives of the aid and development community, and businesses) discussed the future of New Zealand's aid. This forum topic invites discussion and debate on the expected and recommended focus of New Zealand's aid budget and the role of academics and NGOs in influencing policy decisions. The recommendations of the summit may provide a starting point for discussion:

[Guest]

I want to know how you can be so sure that NZAID is doing so well. As far as I know, NZAID doesn't publish, and perhaps doesn't even do, independent reports on the completion of every project nor is there publicly available documentation for how the quality of projects are assessed (assuming they're assessed at all). Moreover, not only are there relatively few publicly available evaluations and reviews (just go look at their website), they arn't all positive. But, far more worringly, by NZAID's own assessment the evaluations and reviews that have been conducted continue to be of poor quality. And we could add to that a big question mark about the rigorous independence of these evaluations/reviews. Unlike the NZ Department of Education and some other international development organisations, like the World Bank, the evaluation area in NZAID is not independent in any way of NZAID management nor is it clear if there are any policies in place to ensure obvious conflicts of interest, such as these, are effectively protected against. Government departments are renowned for protecting their own interests (ie senior management interests) over the public's, and sometimes even the Minister's, right to know. In the circumstances, I see no reason why we should be less wary and cautious about the reliability of information about how well NZAID is doing than we would of any other department. In fact i think there are very good reasons for being more vigilant about government aid agencies because the people who's lives they directly impact (or fail to) do not have a vote and have no democratic rights to hold them to account. They rely on us aid hobbyhorses to bridge that feedback loop and if we take a complacent attitude - well I doubt we're doing them any favours.

[hdempster]

NZAID do undertake reviews of their projects and do publish this information. Yes, there are always review concerns, but I thoroughly doubt transferring control of NZAID back into MFAT is the right way to go. They devolved it for many reasons, and there is nothing to suggest that the environment within MFAT has changed sufficiently to be able to handle this new move. Besides, we have had favourable assesments from the OECD, World Bank, IMF and our partner countries. You can't argue with that.

[Hannah]

I see on other sites that many people have already pointed out that its nonsense to oppose economic development to poverty elimination - as though poverty elimination doesn't intrinsically involve economic development. Obviously this debate could be seen as simply a difference of opinion about the best methods to achieve economic development/poverty elimination. But clearly people are actually worried that the Nationals are in fact changing the purpose of aid (on which there is now substantial international agreement) back to nationalist and vested interests. Its as though they've been in a cupboard for the last 20 years and just come out with recycled policies from the 1980s.

But, really, with the global financial crises and Gordon Brown making it official at the recent G20 summit that the 'Washington consensus' on unfettered neoliberal economic liberalisation was over, there is now no excuse for simplistic and dissociated neoliberal policies for economic growth. The fact is, the 'Washington consensus' was over by 2000 even among the economic hard-heads in the aid industry. Thanks in part to a rigorously independent (albeit still one-dimensional) evaluation areas in the World Bank and elsewhere, that could no longer deny that there was a connection between good governance and economic growth and that good governance - meaning effective state capacities, justice and robust political systems - had to be built before economic growth would take off.

[Roger]

You don't need to search very hard to find favourable reviews of NZAID
http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,3343,en_2649_34603_34763772_1_1_1_1,00.html

And on the Paris Declaration: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/19/9/40888983.pdf

[Ray]

Can Guest inform us whetherthe outcomes of MFAT expenditures are independently evaluated and if not, why rolling NZAID fully back into MFAT will improve NZAID evaluations?