NEWS & EVENTS
What is NOT aid?
ODA is not limited to funds spent by Australia’s aid agency, AusAID. You may be surprised to learn that Australian aid figures are inflated by including spending on:controlling ‘irregular’ immigration and upgrading of detention facilities in...
What was that in aid of? How Canberra is generous to a fault
No, taxpayers should be concerned because the government does not have a clear plan for how it is going to use that money, and prevent it being wasted.Ten years ago the world agreed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. This was the first of the Millennium...
Technical Assistance
Most of these salaries stay in Australia and hence this form of aid delivery creates a ‘boomerang aid’ effect. See also: “Corporatisation”Criticisms of Technical Assistance:TA is criticised internationally as both expensive and yet to be...
National Interest
Courtesy of New Zealand Electronic Text Centre - nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-GriWom2-c3.html AusAID’s primary objective is To assist developing countries to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development, in line with Australia’s national interest....
AID/WATCH in the News: Major shake up of Australian aid agency, AusAID
The Australian government has announced it will phase out more than a third of its advisor positions in East Timor over the next two years. AusAID will cut 29 of its 82 advisor positions in East Timor. The move follows similar cuts for Papua New Guinea and is part of...
Gone for good to fetch a pail of water
On a hot May afternoon, Cambodian sister and brother Hut Heap and Hut Hoeub left their makeshift family home to search for fresh water.They never returned. Hours later, the bodies of the 13-year-old girl and her nine-year-old brother were found at the bottom of an...
AID/WATCH in the News: Australian aid watchdog calls for urgent debate on spending
The Australian Foreign Minister’s advised his Papua New Guinea counterpart that the number of aid advisers to PNG will be cut by more than a third over the next two years.PNG receives over 450 million US dollars a year in aid funding, almost half of which goes...
AID/WATCH in the News: Australia to slash advisor numbers in PNG
Australia will slash the number of technical advisors to Papua New Guinea by a third in an attempt to eliminate wastage. Australia's foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, confirmed the cuts as part of a plan to drastically overhaul its $457 million PNG aid program. The...
AID/WATCH in the News: Australia to slash advisers on PNG aid
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said on Thursday he had advised his PNG counterpart Sam Abal of the government's decision to make big cuts in the ranks of the 487 Australian advisers working on PNG aid.He said a review of the PNG-Australia Development Cooperation Treaty...
Developing nations missing out on climate funding says Oxfam
The aid agency has called on the UN Climate Change Summit, in Cancun, in December, to create a Global Climate Fund for vulnerable populations in poor countries.At a crucial lead-up meeting in Tianjin China over the weekend, there was some progress towards a Climate...
Afghans left out of aid decisions
Afghans recently voted in their fourth poll since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. They did so in a country that continues to be wracked by conflict and persistent poverty. It's estimated that 42 per cent of the population live below the poverty line, and there...
More aid means more problems: Treasury
The federal opposition seized on the warning as further evidence that an unchecked Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd, who last week was spruiking Australia's benevolence to the United Nations, will only accelerate the program's failure.Deputy opposition leader and...
Hunger costs
ActionAid’s report reveals that hunger is costing poor nations US$450 billion a year - more than ten times the amount needed to halve hunger by 2015 and meet Millennium Development Goal One.Fighting hunger is in other words ten times cheaper than ignoring...
Chronic humanitarian emergency in PNG’s Yelia region
Care's CEO, Julia Newton-Howes, outlined the details at a Canberra conference called to discuss the findings of a recent joint review of the Australia-PNG Development Co-operation Treaty. Presenter: Canberra Correspondent, Linda MottramSpeaker: Professor Stephen...
Aust trade minister wants free trade to eliminate poverty
He says this as he prepares for his first overseas trip in the job, travelling to the United States. Doctor Emerson says he wants to turn his mind to PACER-Plus, the proposed Pacific free trade deal, as soon as possible, though a tight Parliamentary schedule in...
Pacific agriculture, forestry leaders pass land strategy
The endorsement came after this week's meeting of regional agriculture and forestry leaders considered the findings of the report 'Making Land Work' prepared by Australia's overseas aid body, AusAID.The acting director of the Land Resources Division at the Secretariat...
Aid or an army? Blurring the lines can be risky
Images of the Australian Defence Force delivering aid to Pakistan this week dominate the Australian government's aid agency website. The news heralds the arrival of mixed military and civilian medical teams to flood-devastated areas.In Britain, the Department for...
IFC launches new Pacific microfinance initiative
Presenter: Jemima Gerrett Speaker: Deva de Silva, from the International Finance Corporation DE SILVA: The priority or the focus here is the lower income segments of the economies in the Pacific Island countries, starting from Timor Leste to PNG and all the other...