Here’s a big question: where is AusAID?

BY MARY KOISEN

AS A PAPUA NEW GUINEAN, personally I have not benefited from any aid from Australia.

When we had no water for years growing up in Hohola, where was AusAID.

When I went to primary school at Eki Vaki and shared a single desk with two other students, where was AusAID?

When we shared one textbook among the 30 of us in class, where was AusAID?

When we couldn't use the school toilets because it was beyond a child's ability to figure out how I was going to put my bum on all that stink, where was AusAID?

Mate, this was almost 20 years ago, and even to this day, it hasn't changed.

And the question begs - where is AusAID?

Let me tell you where it is.  It is paying the dumb consultants they send to this country to create models for six months and then leave for the next consultant to come back and create yet another model overriding the previous one.

And there are just no real results.

We don't need these consultants sitting in whitewashed walls pushing paper.

What we need is hands-on individuals who are out there with the people: building wells, schools, desks, new facilities and getting the local people involved.

Practical wisdom. That's what is needed.

Comments

[Steven Sorua]

Boomerang is the word! PNG is left with concrete, iron and timber to rot away. The king returns to land down under!

[Barbara Short]

Although there are many PNG men and women who have come to understand that money does not "grow on trees" and has to be won by the "sweat of the brow", there are still others who don't understand this.

They include these politicians who seem to have been fraudulent and also government employees, public servants, who still do not understand what it all means...money comes from hard work!

So, they get the money from AusAid and they, and AusAid, forget to tell the taxpayers of Australia what they have done with our hard-earned cash!

Maybe World Vision is a good example for AusAid to copy. They have recently put out a small booklet "Gifts that mean more" which has been letter-box dropped.

In it we can read about their work - toilets, health and nutrition education, clean water for a community etc..."Baby Gladys in PNG benefits from a health and sanitation program in her village... " with excellent photographs ..etc

Why can't AusAid do something similar? The taxpayers of Australia deserve to know how the money given to AusAid has been spent and the results of that expenditure.

It would also help to educate the Australian public about PNG, our nearest neighbour, and its problems.

[Basil Peutalo]

Paul - I was growing up during that Kiap period and agree totally with your sentiments!

But on the other hand, all of that investment would have been left to rot under the new governance system of the independent PNG. Mi no save!

[Paul Oates]

I know I sound like a blast from the past but if only we had've had anywhere near the funds being splashed around today, what a difference it would have made then.

All we had to work with was a trickle of funding and the people's good will and enthusiasm as they could see the benefits accruing.

The second obvious difference is that in our day, management happened at the grass roots and was directly held responsible and accountable.

Perhaps that's the only answer?

[Trevor Freestone.]

AusAID's assistance should supplement the PNG government's development plans, not replace them. AusAID and corruption have let the people down.

I know there are honest Papua New Guineans and Australians who would undertake specific projects without charging exorbitant cosulting fees.

My request to AusAID to assist setting up a computer laboratory at Watabung school was flatly refused.

My request for AusAID to assist with building a new police station at Watabung was also flatly refused.

$50,000 dollars could have provided for both these projects, with enough money left over to renovate the 35 year old police houses. Local villagers would have been available as labourers, also benefiting.

Since AusAID provides $470 million a year so many such projects could be undertaken throughout rural PNG.

One has to wonder why this has not happened. 35 years even at $300 million equals $10,500 million.

So one has to wonder why hasn't the rural community received more assistance and where has the money gone?
_________

A good question, Trevor, and rough thought your maths may be, it is a question that AusAID dare not attempt to answer - KJ

[Mary Koisen]

I have had the privilege of getting a university qualification in New Zealand (an initiative by the NZ government offering scholarships) and now have a well paying job and a roof over my head, clean running water, hot and cold water taps (yay!) and can afford a haus meri who cleans.

I would like to acknowledge some of the work AusAID has done in offering scholarships like the one I had from NZ and others mentioned by Peter, but in terms of measuring the input with respect to the output of AusAID funded projects, I'm not quite satisfied that there are any real results.

I have made it past the days when there was no running water and few resources and facilities at primary and high school.

In fact I didnt know any better - I thought, "this is it - that's the way it is".

There were no issues with the way things were. Life was not extremely miserable but it was trying.

My older brothers and sisters say, "Me, you have no idea - you've had it good". I think our hardships, experiences make us who we are and so I am grateful for mine. I am not complaining.

What I'm specifically annoyed and disgusted by I guess is the amount of publicity and talk of what or how much Australia has contributed to PNG by way of consultants/ projects. Yet nothing's really changed has it?

Publicise when there are results.

I have met individuals who work for AusAID and I have directly asked, "How long have you been here? What projects are you working on? Do you think you've made any significant impact? What has been the difference between now and then?"

I would get a response, but not an answer. Hmmm.

Maybe an independent office should be set up to audit these consultants and projects by AusAID so there is transparency, accountability and, most importantly, results.

Yet at the same time I am prepared to take the flack for my own people and their lack of taking the initiative in making changes and bringing what little development they can to their lives and their communities.

Maybe our parents should've bought us our textbooks, maybe they should got together and built more desks and classrooms, maybe they should've got together and helped clean our toilets. Maybe.

As Papua New Guineans we've all have had the same experiences, opportunities and privileges. It is really up to you as individuals what we make of these opportunities and priviledges.

I don't blame AusAID for any lack of services or infrastucture that I didn't have and/or still lack.

But at the same I don't ever recall asking for aid from them anyway. It was and is given on their own accord.

If you're going to make a song and dance about how much you give, then by all means show us the fruits.

[Basil Peutalo]

There are rural communities and people who have suffered due to their ineligibility to meet the criteria of programs with seemingly relevant titles and names from such donor agencies, AusAID being one among many in PNG.

Our agribusiness in the Melkoi LLG Area, Pomio District, has been going in and out of offices of potential partners for assistance for the last 12 months.

Our proposal was rejected by a commercial bank twice when we applied for funding under a recently launched World Bank-sponsored funding facility.

A government bank is taking time because this is the first time we are seeking loan, we do not have any investments, and our cocoa products are often available when and if they are produced.

I can appreciate their concerns. But I cannot understand the relevance of development goals and objectives of development programs that are promoted here in PNG by both the government of PNG and its foreign partners that do not seem to cater for such initiatives as ours.

Pomio, like the Duke of Yorks and Bainings, is on the other side of development divide in the East New Brtain Province.

Even project-based funding is still not forging development impacts to reaching down to where they are most needed.

[Daniel Doyle]

Yes, Barbara, AusAID could communicate more but is it not primarily the responsibility of the Department of Education to advise the public as to developments at its national institutions? After all, it has a Communications Section and a Project Section.

I wonder about AusAID funding developments at Keravat considering that K2 million budgeted by GOPNG apparently disappeared from within National Planning.

Using aid money to replace the missing budgeted K2m could be construed as rewarding fraud.

[Daniel Doyle]

This is not a defence of Coffey or any other consultancy company, just an attempt to inject a little balance into the discussion.

The Basic Education Infrastructure and Curriculum Materials Project (BEICMP) in the early 2000s had more than 200 years of PNG education experience among its expat staff and a dozen or more young PNG professionals.

It's successor, the Basic Education Development Program (BEDP) in the second half of the 2000s had a majority of PNG staff with the percentage increasing as the program progressed.

[Peter Kranz]

Maybe we should introduce a new unit of currency.

The Consultant (monetary equivalent around $250,000)

Examples :

One Consultant = 3 local water supplies.

Three Consultants = 1 upgraded hospital

Half a Consultant = 100 people treated with
antiretroviral drugs for a year.

However this is small currency compared to the next unit up - a Politician.

1 Politician = a brand new School - with health clinic, community centre and access roads.

[Barbara Short]

Earlier this year I met a man who has been involved with AusAID. He told me that he had been working on rebuilding high schools, e.g. Manus High School recently.

Now AusAID was going to rebuild Keravat National High School which has been closed this year.

I haven't heard any news from him lately.

Maybe one of AusAID's problems is that they do not tell us what they are doing in PNG.

What is happening at Keravat, for instance? Can anyone tell me?
____________

Barbara has identified a major problem. Considering it is in the business of nation-to-nation, people-to-people assistance, and given that it is responsible for dispersing hundreds of millions of dollars of Australian taxpayers' money, AusAID is a lousy communicator. It needs to well and truly pick up its game - KJ

[Phil Fitzpatrick]

The point here is not so much that AusAID should have been providing desks and clean toilets for the kids but the fact that, while this situation pertained, there were consultants on high fees busily squandering money on repetitive reports that no one ever reads or acts upon.

You can't eat reports and they don't make very good desks; as toilet paper they are only marginally acceptable.

AusAID needs to get practical people on the ground doing useful things.

Consultant rich organisations like Coffey International don't have those sorts of people and AusAID needs to recruit elsewhere; maybe (gasp!) within the recipient countries.

[Peter Kranz]

I don't know what to think.

I know that some of my immediate family are in desperate need of help - which could be supported by targeted AusAID support - such as the water supply and hospital in Kundiawa. Or water for ATS in Mosbi.

What should we choose?

Is anyone saying my family should get sick because AusAID won't fund a decent water supply in Kundiawa or ATS?

This is what some people are asking us to choose between.

[Peter Kranz]

Mary - My take...

Yes, there has been boomerang aid, some corruption and some wastage, and ridiculous 'consultants' fees - but there have been some successes - such as nursing education, schools support, scholarships, and AIDS treatment.

So maybe we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

What is needed is a tighter focus and a closer concentration on areas af immediate neeed for local people - with adequate governance.

What this takes is administrators with a closer knowledge of needs and priorities of communities.

If AusAID could provide a clean and reliable water supply to my tambus at 7 Mile and a decent health clinic, I would think it would be a job well done and worth the money.

But so far, nogat.

The alternative is to let the locals suffer due to some prehistoric evolutionary porinciple which says only the fittest should survive.

This idea is being actively touted in some Australian newsapers this very day, to our shame.

[Mary Koisen]

Thanks Peter. I clicked on the link but had difficulty getting through. Will keep trying though. It seems like an interesting read.

Boomarang aid is really what AusAID is about.

It's OK if AusAID wants to pay these consultants the ridiculous amounts of money for hardly any work done, but just send them back to Australia and pay them there and see what the Australian public has to say about it.

Otherwise that's great get paid but give us real results. That is the name of the game.

[Peter Kranz]

A provocative book was published in 2009 - Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo.

She argues that aid is counterproductive and leads developing countries into a cycle of dependency, corruption, distortion of local economies and lack of real economic growth.

Her examples are from Africa, but she applies this lesson universally and suggests that recipient countries are less well off now than a generation or two ago.

Mary's experience seems to support this.

This is her web site -

http://www.dambisamoyo.com/books/?book=dead-aid

And here's a rather good review of her book by one of her former economics professors from Oxford -

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/dead-aid-by-dambisa-moyo-1519875.html