Helping others to help ourselves

Although the common perception of aid is that it is delivered by well meaning charities, such as Oxfam, the Red Cross etc, in response to local needs, these non-government organisations receive just under five per cent of the $2.5 billion Australian aid program.

Most Australian aid is delivered by private companies operating for profit through proactive programs and projects that aim to tackle the structural nature of poverty. Building new roads to allow access to markets, better health systems and improved educational access are the traditional pillars of aid work, but increasingly Australia is funding so called “good governance” programs instead.

In 2005-06 good governance funding takes up 36 per cent of Australia’s entire aid budget. Its goal is economic and political reform, building stronger government institutions, the construction and running of prisons and the like.

Proactive aid projects have historically brought substantial dividends to Australian firms operating in a for-profit context. The late Kerry Packer, one of Australia’s most prominent businessmen, was heavily involved in the delivery of Australian aid through his company GRM.

In 2001, GRM was involved in strengthening the law and justice sector in the Solomon Islands. Observers who witnessed the sending of Australian troops to the Solomons in 2003 would question how successful this $13 million contract had been. Yet seemingly without independent evaluation or tender, this contract was extended to more than $48 million as RAMSI moved in. Today, GRM operates the main prison outside Honiara and is involved in organising High Court trials, in addition to effectively acting as the ombudsman for the prison system: a definite conflict of interest.

Leaving aside the effectiveness of the work by GRM in the Solomons, it may be worth questioning the suitability of a company operating in the gaming sector with close association to the legal sector. It is likely such a potential conflict of interest would come under scrutiny if it occurred in Australia.

Recently too the Australian Government has used aid money for foreign policy imperatives. The Pacific solution, designed to head off and detain asylum seekers in offshore processing centres such as Manus Island, Christmas Island and Nauru, was funded through the Australian aid program. It is difficult to see how the program alleviated poverty or what its development outcomes were - though it certainly suited the government's own interests.

The so-called “$1 billion tsunami response” by Australia was also a victim of the national interest agenda. Australia’s decision to deliver aid in direct partnership with the Indonesian Government, although edifying our relationship with our neighbour, has meant that just $190 million has been allocated to tsunami ravaged Aceh, with remaining funds allocated to other areas of Indonesia.

While it is arguable that these other programs - including scholarships, economic and political reform, building of infrastructure - are of merit, it is undoubted that they had nothing to do with the tsunami.

It is one thing to be delivering a commercial and security advantage through an aid program, but it is entirely another to limit the development future of a recipient country at the expense of our own national interest.

For Australia to ensure the stability of our region, we need to rethink the framework through which we deliver our aid, with a clear focus on human security rather than the current multifaceted approach, which is undermining recipient countries’ ability to choose their own development paths.