Towards Excellence In Aid Delivery: A Review of New Zealand's Official Development Assistance Programme.

• Author: McKinnon, John
• Position: Books

TOWARDS EXCELLENCE IN AID DELIVERY: A Review of New Zealand's Official Development Assistance Programme Report of the Ministerial Review Team, March 2001, 130pp.

In September 2000 Matt Robson, in his role as Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade with special responsibility for international aid, commissioned a review of New Zealand's Official Development Assistance Programme. The review, to `provide a vision for NZODA', was completed in March and released on 10 September but lost in events of the following day. The delay between delivery and release indicated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was not overjoyed with the outcome. Nevertheless Foreign Minister Phil Goff and Associate Minister Robson acted quickly to implement the recommendations. By mid-October a panel supposedly mounted to discuss the future direction of NZODA became an occasion to signal that Big Brother had spoken: the `discussion' was used to tell the public and people working in aid something of what is going to happen.

Why the haste? Here it was possible to get things done quickly. The Alliance Party played a major role in the process and there were election promises to meet. A semi-autonomous body (SAB) will be formed. According to a recent Official Development Assistance newsletter issued by MFAT this SAB,

Will have its own head, its own vote and will report directly to ministers. Other changes under the new structure will include an even stronger focus on poverty elimination and some reduction in the number of aid partners. More emphasis is to be placed on basic education and good governance, while human rights will he more closely mainstreamed into programmes. If all the recommendations of the review are picked up, the NZODA core focus on the South Pacific will be retained and strengthened. If, as advised, the number of bilateral partners is reduced from '63 to around ten', then we can expect a few of our Pacific partners, once the constitutionally derived payments to Niue, Cook Islands and Tokelau are discounted from the ODA budget, to do even better out of what New Zealand can provide.

Aid practitioners will welcome many of the recommended changes. The promise that the practice of rotating diplomatic trainees through the country desks on average every 18 months and either replacing them with development professionals or giving them more time to make a fist of the work to which they are assigned will add greatly to continuity, communication...