NEWS & EVENTS

The aid monitoring group AidWatch says the Australian government's decision to reintegrate AusAid into the Department of Foreign Affairs shows alleviating global poverty is not a priority.The newly-elected Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who has planned a AUS$4.5 billion...

This week’s news of AusAID’s integration into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is disappointing though not wholly unexpected. AusAID has always operated with a tension between its often conflicting objectives of the national interest and...

TONY EASTLEY: Aid groups are concerned about the direction of international development assistance under the Abbott Government.AID/WATCH is an independent aid watchdog. Peter Lloyd is speaking here to Matt Hilton, the chairman of its management committee.MATT HILTON:...

I couldn’t believe my ears. I was in Papua New Guinea's capital, Port Moresby, in 2012 and a local Oxfam employee told me that he wished Australia would again take control of his country. He argued that in the nearly four decades since independence, the...

They were the $600,000 worth of Australian taxpayer-funded projects that were supposed to change the lives of poor villagers living along the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea.But according to veteran Kokoda Track trekking company operator Charlie Lynn, the Sustainable...

In the lead up to the federal election in Australia, both political parties see a role for foreign aid but neither can commit to reaching normative targets. Recently, the Labor government , under new prime minister Kevin Rudd, deferred Australia's commitment to aid as...

PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill revealed for the first time the cost of the projects and the extra aid money to be provided by Australia.The key elements of the aid-for-asylum-seeker deal, which Mr O'Neill signed with his Australian counterpart in Brisbane two...

AusAID’s partial funding of the rehabilitation of a country-wide railway system aligns with its aid strategy in Cambodia. The “Australian- Cambodia Joint Aid Program Strategy 2010- 2015” paper  identifies five strategic goals, including to build...

ListenMARK COLVIN: In a big policy shift, the World Bank says it'll no longer fund coal fired power stations in poor countries.The board of the World Bank has agreed to a new energy strategy which will limit the financing of coal generation except in 'rare'...

Parke, who takes over the first such portfolio since 1996, is poised to run her non-cabinet office amid much belt-tightening in foreign aid spending in recent years that has led to a two-year delay of the government’s pledge to set aside by 2015 0.5 percent of...

In a small note on the AusAid website, the Commonwealth government has confirmed a $47 million project to restore 25,000 hectares of peatland on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan will end before most of its major milestones are met.The Kalimantan project was first...