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The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Hon Murray McCully, has been giving out indications of the new Government’s plans for NZAID. While there has not yet been any official announcement, the comments that Mr McCully has made have been causing concern among those involved with development programmes.
One of the key comments has been to signal a change in emphasis from ‘poverty alleviation’ to a focus on ‘sustainable economic development’. Mr McCully has made it clear that he considers many of the existing ‘poverty alleviation’ programmes to be a waste of time and money. In line with National’s free-enterprise philosophy, he sees the promotion of trade as the best response to global poverty. In a speech to a New Zealand-Pacific Business Council sponsored event in February he outlined the trade deficits faced by Pacific Island nations and argued that these demonstrated the failure of previous aid policies. The solution he says is to promote economic growth through increased trade with New Zealand.
Poverty elimination and sustainable economic development should never be painted as opposites. Ideally they are both part of the same thing. You will not get sustainable economic development without direct poverty elimination programmes; you will not get anywhere with poverty elimination without providing paths for sustainable economic development. Economic development requires healthy people with increasing levels of education. Health and education are core poverty elimination programmes. These are the balances that all of us in development work with all the time.
The Pacific trade deficits quoted by Mr McCully are a real issue, and a good one to pick up on. As he points out, the deficits are hugely in NZ’s favour. Fixing this situation means finding more to import from the Pacific nations, or else helping them to be less dependent on imports from NZ, or a combination of both. The literature on free trade agreements (fta’s) is very strong that most fta’s work in favour of the wealthy partner, not the poor partner. Unregulated free trade is not the answer. Changing the Pacific trade deficits will mean changing New Zealand’s trading patterns for something that is not so heavily weighted in New Zealand’s favour. Systematic pro-poor trading conditions will have to be introduced.
‘Sustainable economic development’ is a theme that the development community can pick up and work with, so long as we can ensure that it is structured with adequate safeguards, and is working to the benefit rather than the disadvantage of the poor.
The second signal from Mr McCully is a more concerning issue. Mr McCully has ordered a review of NZAID with a stated preference for NZAID to lose its semi-autonomous status and return to being a function of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). He wants aid and development programmes to be more closely linked to Government Foreign Affairs policy. In particular this means that ODA funds should be able to be used to support MFAT’s trade promotion goals in the Pacific region.
“Foreign Affairs and ODA have distinctly different missions. ODA asks partner governments: what are your needs and how can we help them? Foreign Affairs asks: what are our needs and how can we advance them?” To run the two under one agency is to fudge this separation. It is not a question of any government agency failing to conform to the policies of the Government of the day. As a semi-autonomous body, NZAID still has to follow the policies of the Government. The point is that as a separate body the government is required to be transparent about having separate policies for the use of its aid and development budget. The ODA budget should not be used to promote NZ’s trade policies. With NZAID as a separate agency, the Government is responsible for defining clear humanitarian policies for its aid budgets.
Internationally NZAID’s structure and programmes are recognised as highly effective and world-leading. David Culverhouse, the Executive Director of CID, asks “What problem is Murray McCully trying to fix?” Barry Coates, Executive Director of Oxfam New Zealand says "The provision of aid by the New Zealand government should be for the benefit of people living in poverty - those without access to adequate food, water, housing and livelihoods. New Zealand taxpayers are not supporting aid because it will benefit rich elites in developing countries. Nor are they supporting aid to be used as a sweetener to persuade other governments to accept our political agendas. Aid is to help those less fortunate than ourselves.”
The reviews ordered by Mr McCully have not invited non-government development organisations to participate. The Council for International Development, which is the umbrella organisation for these organisations, represents a community with a vast amount of experience in working on aid and development issues. The members of Micah Challenge include Christian development organisations with practical experience of what poverty means in the Pacific region and beyond. We bring with us a great amount of aid funding donated by ordinary New Zealanders who want to see it used to help the poorest of the poor. We hope that Mr McCully will see the benefit of inviting us to participate as partners in New Zealand’s ODA programmes.
Micah Challenge members invite our readers to respond by doing one or more of the following:
- write to Mr McCully directly (
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- Write to your local MP of which ever party – see the Parliament website for a list of all MPs and their contact details
- Write a letter to your local news media
For a sample letter, and to see what other agencies are saying about this issue, go to www.dontcorruptaid.org.nz.
References
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