Hello and welcome to an NZADDs email update.
Development Policy Centre Aid Stakeholder Surveys (Deadline September 25)
First up, the Development Policy Centre (where, by way of full disclosure, I have a day job) has just opened the public round of this year’s Australian and New Zealand aid stakeholder surveys. The surveys are run to allow people who interact with either donor’s aid programme to have their say about aid programme performance, to emphasise what is working well, and to provide constructive feedback on what could be improved. The inaugural Australian survey was run in 2013. And this year the undertaking has been extended to cover New Zealand.
The surveys are your chance to have your say. They are independently operated and funded, and are not linked to either aid programme in any way. They are run in accordance with the Australian National University’s ethics protocol and all responses are kept anonymous. The surveys take about 20 minutes to fill out and the Centre would really appreciate it if you took this opportunity to share your experiences interacting with either (or both) of the countries’ aid programmes.
You can access the New Zealand survey from this link.
You can access the Australian survey from this link.
And you can read more about the surveys here.
Have your say! And please forward on this request to others. The deadline for survey responses is September 25.
Decoding the DAC review of New Zealand aid – two different views
Second up, in the latest NZADDs commentary you can read two takes on the 2015 OECD DAC peer review of the New Zealand government aid programme. Together Gerard Prinsen and Jo Spratt have come up with one page of the bad news from the review, and one page of good news from the review. You can download the commentary here.
Waiting Expectantly…
We’re imagining that the New Zealand Government Aid Programme’s new strategic plan will be released any day now (it was due to be released in August). It will be interesting to see what shape it takes.
Likewise, we are eagerly awaiting the release of the country budget allocations for the aid programme for this financial year (the allocations should also detail planned spending for the next three years). Given it’s now two months into the financial year we imagine the allocations will be released any day now (indeed it’s surprising they’re not already available). When they are made public we will be particularly interested to know how much aid will be given to Nauru this year given the state its state is in, and the serious questions these problems raise about our giving of aid to Nauru.
Development Reading Bonus
Finally, on the Devpolicy blog Ewen McDonald (Deputy Secretary in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and Jonathan Kings (the Deputy Secretary for International Development in MFAT) offer their upbeat assessment of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development. If that all seems too happy, on Project Syndicate (which requires registration but is free) Professor Gordon Lafer offers his grim take on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement; and Human Rights watch has a distressing report on Human Rights violations associated with World Bank-funded projects. Meanwhile, Robin Davies does a good job of taking down some shoddy reporting in the Australian, reporting which suggested that Australia was ‘pulling its weight’ when it came to refugees. As Robin shows this simply isn’t true. Moreover, depressingly, the tables in the blog post suggest that, by any metric of refugee intake, New Zealand fares worse than Australia. (Also the Guardian has good reporting on three facts about refugee processes that Australians often get wrong.) For those with an ongoing interest in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the CGD has an interesting breakdown of the apportionment of decision making power in the development bank (note New Zealand’s mention in the footnote under the first chart). Also, just in case you didn’t see it when it came out, an interest blog post from Kevin Clements on New Zealand aid. And, finally, ‘Incline‘, which looks like a very interesting blog on International Relations with a New Zealand focus.
Terence (for NZADDs admin)
New Zealand Aid and Development Dialogues 