Australia tells big development banks to ‘lift their game’ in the Pacific

Australian minister for international development Pat Conroy urges development banks to look beyond price and properly take account of the quality of a bid. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The Australian government has told big development banks to “lift their game” in the Pacific amid concerns they are approving poor-quality, cut-price projects only for the budgets to blow out.

Largely funded by governments, development banks provide grants and low-cost loans to developing countries to help them build infrastructure and other projects.