New Zealand Aid and Development Dialogues

In 2009 the National government changed the mandate of the New Zealand government aid programme. From poverty elimination it was changed to sustainable development, with the key focus on economic development. From 21-25 March 2011, former NZAID staffer Terence Wood will host  a series of talks looking at the question “is a focus on economic development really is the best possible way an aid agency can attempt to bring about development more generally?”

Talks will be held in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin and maybe Christchurch. Stay tuned for more information on the dates of the talks.

If you’re interested in aid and development, then you’ll almost certainly be interested in the upcoming conference being held by Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies: Resilience in the Pacific (16 & 17 February 2011). The event isn’t being organised by NZADDs but John Overton from the NZADDs steering committee will be speaking at it. You can download a PDF of the programme for this event here.

Also, why not have a look around our resources page. It contains numerous interesting articles and references. A recent addition is a PDF of aid-relevant parliamentary questions asked in the New Zealand parliament over the last year. A careful read will give you a good idea of some current issues of concern with our aid programme. The link to the PDF is here.