Chris Hipkins has laid the groundwork for an austerity Budget this week, but one organisation says our economic pain may grow rather than reduce if we fail to increase international aid
Aid organisations have called on the Government to boost the country’s international aid spending, with a new report highlighting a gap between political ambition and staff resourcing exacerbated by the “erosion” of institutional knowledge.
An OECD peer review of New Zealand’s official development assistance (ODA) programme, published last week, praised the country for its partner-led approach to the Pacific and international climate finance commitments that had helped to reinvigorate officials’ work.
However, the review raised concerns about “sustained periods of heavy workloads” for staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, adding: “There is a sense that the ambition set at the political level has not been matched by human resourcing.”
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“Successive crises have also put further pressure on staff welfare, undermining programme delivery and eroding institutional knowledge.”
Some of New Zealand’s partners had drawn attention to a “churn” of people with insufficient experience due to a policy of staff rotation, which could harm the quality of work and relationships while slowing aid processes.
The review recommended that Mfat focus more closely on strategic workforce planning, and suggested the ministry consider giving diplomatic staff working at Pacific posts greater control over decision making for aid projects.
The report said the development of publicly available four-year plans was a welcome change, but public information on development projects and investments was “still limited, despite its importance for building accountability at the country level, between New Zealand and its partners, and with citizens at home”.
“High-level commitment within MFAT on the relevance of transparency, together with dedicated resources, will be important to support progress.”
“Given the time it takes to programme and implement development investments, deciding to sustain recent climate finance commitments now will be critical to avoid a sharp decrease in funding from 2025-26, and the significant impact on programming this would entail." - OECD peer review
New Zealand ranked 22nd among the 29 members of the OECD’s development assistance committee when it came to ODA volume, while its aid spending as a percentage of gross national income – just 0.23 percent in 2022, according to OECD figures – was behind both the committee average of 0.33 percent and the UN target of 0.7 percent.
“Given the time it takes to programme and implement development investments, deciding to sustain recent climate finance commitments now will be critical to avoid a sharp decrease in funding from 2025-26, and the significant impact on programming this would entail,” the review said.
“Developing a medium-term plan to increase ODA, with actionable targets, would protect longer-term investments and better position New Zealand to catch up with the OECD [committee] average.”
Council for International Development executive director Peter Rudd called on the Government to make a firm commitment to increase aid spending in Thursday’s Budget.
While ministers were facing pressure to deal with the cost-of-living crisis at home, failing to deal with urgent need in the Pacific region and elsewhere would ultimately increase pressure on the New Zealand economy, Rudd said.
“In these increasingly turbulent economic and geopolitical times the world is experiencing, and with the ongoing impact of climate change, our commitment to ensuring we are funding work that improves the lives of the world’s poorest has never been more important.”
“I know that there's always a push to do more in that area, but right now, we've got a lot of constraints and demands on our budget.” - Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the Government was “doing quite a bit with our ODA”, noting significant climate finance commitments.
“I know that there's always a push to do more in that area, but right now, we've got a lot of constraints and demands on our budget.”
New Zealand was committed to delivering aid in a responsible manner as the world dealt with complex challenges requiring support, Mahuta said, with the Government continuing to work with civil society and NGOs to refine its approach.
In a statement on the ministry’s website responding to the release of the peer review, deputy chief executive Bernadette Cavanagh said the document had “laid down a challenge” for the country to respond.
“Being accountable to our global community, our Pacific whanaunga, and those we support and work alongside with, is crucial to being a credible development partner,” Cavanagh said.
An Mfat spokeswoman told Newsroom the ministry "put significant thought into how we best build international development expertise when we make key HR decisions", but needed to ensure it attracted and kept the right mix or generalist and specialist skills.
"While there has been some criticism that our rotational system creates challenges in terms of maintaining development expertise, we also see it as providing real benefits from a policy coherence perspective. We have staff with deep Pacific development expertise working now in trade, multilateral engagement, or as diplomats at our European posts, for example."
The spokeswoman said Mfat was continuing to think about how to best develop its workforce and improve the efficiency of its delivery models.
The ministry had already made significant improvements to its aid transparency in recent years, and there would be further advances by the end of 2023, including easier access to project-level data via a new website.
* This article has been updated with additional comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
