{"id":2681,"date":"2020-04-01T07:15:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T07:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/?p=2681"},"modified":"2020-04-01T07:15:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T07:15:29","slug":"covid-19-implications-for-australian-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/2020\/04\/01\/covid-19-implications-for-australian-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: implications for Australian aid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Stephen Howes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no part of Australian life that the current pandemic is not\ntouching. Here are the some of the likely far-reaching implications for\nAustralian aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with, the pandemic and resulting economic fallout have thrown the\nfuture of the aid budget up in the air. The ultimate outcome is hard to\npredict. On the one hand, there will be strong downward pressure on aid\nvolumes. Domestic revenue will be weak, the deficit will be large, pressures\nfor domestic expenditure immense. The aid budget could be slashed. On the other\nhand, if there are serious outbreaks in neighbouring countries, whether in the\nPacific or Southeast Asia, there will be a realisation in Australia that we\nneed to provide massive support, as we would in a natural disaster. Such a\ntragic \u2013 and certainly possible, if not likely \u2013  outcome would provide\nthe basis for avoiding cuts in the aid budget, and perhaps even for an\nincrease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, although Australia\u2019s annual budget has been deferred to\nOctober, it is unclear what that means for aid. Perhaps no decision will be\ntaken on aid volumes until then; but the government doesn\u2019t actually need a\nbudget to spend less aid \u2013 it can just give the order. That opens up the possibility\nthat aid will be cut by stealth, a worrying prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a concern might seem to support the conclusion that it would be good to\nhave the new aid (development policy) strategy, under preparation since late\nlast year, finalised on time in the next couple of months: if there is no\nbudget to guide the aid program then let there at least be a strategy. But that\nwould be a mistake. The same uncertainty that has made it necessary to postpone\nthe budget makes an even stronger case for putting a multi-year strategy on\nhold. We simply don\u2019t know what the world will look like when we come out the\nother end of the current crisis. And until we do, we need to focus on the here\nand now. It should be crisis management, full-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it does come to the need for a new strategy, COVID-19 will certainly\ninfluence the way we look at things. Of all the government\u2019s decisions in\nrelation to aid over the last few years, the cutting of aid spending on health\nstands out as reckless in hindsight. It would be ridiculous to suggest that\nmore Australian aid for health would have stopped the current pandemic. But it\nmight have given countries affected a slightly better chance of withstanding\nit. Just in the last month, family planning NGOs in PNG bemoaned the latest\nround of Australian aid cuts inflicted on them. These are the very same NGOs\nthat are now needed for community engagement to stop the spread of infections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been drawing attention to the cuts to health for the last four years.\nThe figure in the graphic shows Australian government aid expenditure by major\nsector since 2013\u201314. There is a small recovery in the most recent budget, due\nto the creation of the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. No doubt the\ngovernment will hail its prescience in creating that Centre. But the fact\nremains that aid health spending has been cut by 25% after inflation since\n2013\u201314, whereas infrastructure spending has increased by 50%. Expect the\ngovernment to come in for criticism on that point, and for a rethinking on the\nprimacy given to infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The impact of COVID-19 on the aid budget may be far more complex than a\nshift away from infrastructure back to health. Governments in the region will\nneed budget support to stay open. Communities may well need humanitarian\nassistance to stay alive. The government committed back in the White Paper in\n2017 to increase humanitarian spending to $500 million, but, with the pressures\nof the Pacific Step-up, and no actual increase in aid, still hasn\u2019t managed\nthat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the funding for the required increase in humanitarian and budget\nsupport will come from cuts to governance, as training and advisory services\nare reduced due to expatriate evacuations. Despite a lack of emphasis on\ngovernance in its rhetoric, the share of spending on governance has increased\nunder the current government, as the figure above implies. In any case, a major\nreshaping of the aid program is on the cards as COVID-19 and a global recession\nsweep through our region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only statement I have seen by either the Minister for Foreign Affairs or\nthe Minister for International Development and the Pacific in relation to the\ncurrent crisis is a joint one dated 3 March on support to the Pacific and\nTimor-Leste. It was a promising start, but was written at a time when there\nwere no coronavirus cases in the Pacific, and is now out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To most observers, including myself, the aid program has been in a state of\ndrift for the past couple of years. Everything has been about the Pacific Step-up.\nThe current time is not one for shaping a new long-term aid strategy, but it is\nan opportunity to provide a new direction, and a new sense of purpose for the\naid program as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article appeared first on Devpolicy Blog, devpolicy.org, from the\nDevelopment Policy Centre at The Australian National University<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Howes<\/strong> is the Director of the Development Policy Centre and a Professor of Economics at the Crawford School.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Howes There is no part of Australian life that the current pandemic is not touching. Here are the some of the likely far-reaching implications for Australian aid. To start with, the pandemic and resulting economic fallout have thrown the future of the aid budget up in the air. The ultimate outcome is hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"amp_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analisa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2683,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions\/2683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonmetin.info\/buletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}