Hi and welcome to another NZADDs update,

As you may have noticed, China has signed a security agreement with Solomon Islands. This has entailed frantic commentary from Australian and New Zealand pundits. It has drawn heated political debate in Australia, as well as comments from NZ politicians. Our politicians haven’t been as strident, but their statements have still tended to miss the mark.

Over the weekend I published a post on Devpolicy correcting errors regarding the China agreement, and explaining why our current approach to geopolitics in the Pacific is likely to harm both the region, and our own interests.

Also, if you’re interested in views from people in Solomons, please have a read of these three Op-Eds from: Transform Aqorau, Tarcisius Kabutaulaka and Derek Futaiasi.

Terence

Hi and welcome to an NZADDs update.

Late last week the OECD released preliminary data on what its Development Assistance Committee members spent on aid in 2021. I was sick with Covid, so tried to ignore it, but fortunately my Devpolicy colleagues have provided a thorough analysis of what’s happening to global aid flows. (The data aren’t quite global, as they exclude China and some other donors, who aren’t transparent enough to tell the OECD about their aid. However, most major donors are included.)

As you can see in the Devpolicy analysis, global aid flows rose notably in 2021, which is good news.

What about New Zealand?

Continue reading →