MSG gets 70% of aid

Yehiura Hriehwazi






Pacific Islands countries including Papua New Guinea have been allocated a total of A$1,085.4 million in aid assistance under the Australian government’s 2010-2011 federal budget handed down by Treasurer Wayne Swan on May 11.
This money will be used to help developing countries improve the delivery of basic services, particularly education and health.
The Rudd Government has made education a flagship of its aid programme, according to Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.
It will invest a further A$303.7 million over four years in education programmes through its overseas development assistance programme in Asia, Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean countries. This will include funding 2400 scholarships and short courses over four years under the Australia Awards initiative.
Smith said a further A$173.4 million over four years will be focused on improving health services for the poor in developing countries. Specifically, this will tackle child malnutrition, maternal health, infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.
Australia will work with developing countries to deliver vital health services and to improve the performance of their health systems with assistance in areas such as financing, procuring medicines and training of nurses and midwives.
In the Pacific Islands nations, PNG has traditionally been the largest aid recipient from Australia since independence in 1975. This year it received $457.2 million (K1.1billion), an increase of about $40 million from last year.
The smallest amount of aid to the islands nations went to Niue and Tokelau, a combined package of $4.4 million.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group received over 70% of aid to the region with Solomon Islands accounting for A$225.7 million, Vanuatu A$66.4 million and Fiji A$37.2 million.
Aid to Fiji will not be channelled through the military government of Frank Bainimarama, but will go direct to projects supporting community groups through NGOs and village-based workers.
Support to other islands nations are as follows: Samoa A$39 million, Tonga A$27.8 million, Nauru A$26.6 million, Kiribati A$23.9 million, FSM and Palau (combined) A$10.4 million and Cook Islands A$5 million.
Australia as a member of the Pacific Islands Forum budgeted $1.4 million to help with its operations making it the largest contributor to the forum’s sustenance.
A further A$152 million have been earmarked for major cross-regional programmes in health, education and leadership training and support.
Much of Australian overseas aid to the Pacific and other developing countries will go towards supporting health and education programmes and help meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
But in the Pacific, the progress has been slow in some nations and this is a great concern to the ‘Big Brother’ which is why countries with the biggest need received the largest slice of the cake.
“Good progress has been made in some countries, but the region as a whole is significantly off-track to meet the MDGs,” according to Treasurer Swan’s budget papers.
“Australia will continue to support Pacific Island Countries and Papua New Guinea to deal with their development challenges. This requires resources to be well-targeted and effectively coordinated.”
“At the 2009 Pacific Islands Forum meeting, Pacific Leaders and key donors undertook to improve the coordination of aid through the Cairns Compact on Strengthening Development Coordination. The Cairns Compact aims to drive more effective use of all development funds from the Pacific Islands Countries themselves and their development partners including Australia,” the budget papers said.
Australia has established Pacific Partnerships for Development with PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Tonga, Nauru and Tuvalu. Partnerships with the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau will be finalised during 2010.
“All of these partnerships have an overriding objective of achieving better development outcomes, including faster progress towards the MDGs. The partnerships focus on how the partner country will strengthen its own efforts to achieve agreed development outcomes and on how Australia can better target its support. This approach is based on principles of international best practice for effective aid—mutual respect and mutual responsibility.”