Australian Senator Brett Mason says the aid proportion of pacific island nation budgets is decreasing.
The Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Foreign Affairs made this claim while in Apia to attend the Small Island Developing States (S.I.D.S.) Conference.
“Well it is a funny thing,” he said, “but Aid as a proportion of many of the budgets in the Pacific Islands is actually decreasing.”
“The biggest recipient of Australian aid is Papua New Guinea and it is about half a billion dollars a year.”
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“And as a proportion of the Papua New Guinea budget it is rapidly decreasing.”
Senator Mason emphasised that while aid was important, what Foreign Minister Julie Bishop wants people to appreciate, and he believes Pacific leaders do, is that the private sector is at the centre growth.
“You are only going to get sustainable economic development when you have a growing private sector,” he said.
“Otherwise simply, aid of course becomes something that the Pacific Island Countries will use for service delivery.
“That really isn’t the idea of foreign aid, we want to build up a sustainable private sector that can employ people, and do what governments should do.
“You know raise taxes for private industry and then support their people with health education and welfare.”
He said this is what the Australian aid paradigm is moving towards.
“To try to build up the private sector and develop partnerships and leverage with important private businesses,” he said.
“Now that is easier in some countries than in others…I accept that.
“But Samoa, Fiji, PNG which have a pretty good base, even Vanuatu we are doing a bit of work there with the private sector.
“Because, as I say overseas development assistance from Australia as a proportion of national budgets is decreasing.”
He said one way to look at it was that Australia could give more in the way of foreign aid or its government could boost programs such as the Seasonal Worker Program where workers can then send remittances back home.
“That might be a far better way of actually of supporting island countries,” he said. “So it is issues like that, issues like promoting the private sector, philanthropy increasingly.
“So there in other words, it is not just about governments donor recipients any more, it a much broader panorama of development assistance.”
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