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Today, the Federal Government announced its response to the recommendations of the Independent Review on Aid Effectiveness - the first major review of the Australian aid program in over 15 years. Of the 39 recommendations put forward by the Review Panel, the Government agreed in principle with 38 (the Government noted the remaining recommendation, which dealt with the name of the Ministerial portfolio covering the aid program, and committed to responding to this later). The Global Poverty Project is pleased to see that many of these recommendations reflect the suggestions put forward as part of our submission to the Aid Panel earlier this year.
We believe that in the absence of information to the contrary, the Australian public make assumptions about the effectiveness or otherwise of Australian aid. Thats why in our submission, we called for "a radical approach to transparency" and for the Government to publish in full the tenders, contracts, progress, impact and evaluation reports funded by Australian aid. In light of this, we welcome today's announcement by the Government to issue, by the end of 2011, a Transparency Charter to provide more accessible information on where Aid funds go and the results it achieves.
Given the size of the Australian aid program, we also believe it is wise to focus our efforts on just a handful of sectors in which we have a comparative advantage, and a successful history. We believe that health, education and governance are well suited as these focus areas. In light of this, we specifically called for the Government to contribute to successful multilaterals, like the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI), that already have a proven and effective track record. Given this, we are thrilled by the Government's announcement that it "will increase support for multilateral organisations" and "also develop a global ratings system, as the British have done, that assesses the relative effectiveness of all multilateral agencies." In coming months, we will encourage the Government to contribute to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the partnership tasked with the global eradication polio, in order to highlight the life-changing impact of our aid dollars.
Finally, in our submission we also encouraged AusAID to focus on the long-term outcomes – three, five years and beyond – of aid programs, rather than the outputs too often used in announcements and reporting. We are pleased the Government has taken this onboard by its announcement to "develop a rolling four-year whole-of-aid budget strategy, covering for the first time, the aid efforts of all relevant Australian Government agencies under one coherent plan that outlines the results they aim to achieve." The progress of these agencies will be analysed annually against "the results outlined in the four-year budget strategy to make clear what is working and what is not."
GPP believe that these announcements represent a positive step forward in ensuring we have an aid program that delivers real results for the world’s poorest. Of course, much more still needs to be done and our work will be ever crucial in holding the Government to account for implementing these recommendations. One way you can do this is to show your support for a transparent approach to the delivery of aid by signing the petition below.
You can see the Government's response to the Independent Review on Aid Effectiveness at: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/publications/pubout.cfm?ID=5621_9774_1073_3040_2380&Type
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