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The insight that a foreign ministry can administer an effective aid program is critical in the debates ahead. I am not yet hearing from DFAT that it's aiming for an effective aid program- but important to note that it's possible. Most excellent, Jo, can't wait to read more.

So will the end result be DFAT Posts acting more like banks, approving micro-credit loans? What about all those other pre-requisites for economic prosperity like health, education, food security, water and sanitation, etc? Who is best-placed to deliver services when government corruption is rife?

I'm sorry Chris, but I always have to laugh when I see Kiva presented as some radical change or indication of a new paradigm. Kiva is an INGOmediary sure as eggs, one which works through partner organisations to 'facilitate direct linkages' between rich-country and poor-country people. But then so did World Vision child sponsorship in the 1970s. Shouldn't the lesson here be that with a bit of internet pixie dust in the direction of scalability, the old models of intermediation are apparently just as saleable, relevant and necessary as ever?

A very precise analysis of the 2014 Budget, easy to understand by lay person like me but what is of great concern are the many uncertainities posed throughout the narrative. Will the government be able to sustain itself from 2015 onwards? Is there any contingencies should the country be struck by natural disasters? or Are we going to be dependent on the goodwill of other countries? Will the revenue collection machinery achieve its target? or is the government too overconfident on its strategies? Will the election go smoothly as anticipated? or will the current rumblings of political parties explode into civil unrests should suspicions of vote rigging come to the fore? These are pertinent questions which everyone hope will be amicably addressed by the authority. God save Fiji.

Canada's finance ministry manages the bulk of Canada's core contributions to the international financial institutions, while CIDA, now DFATD, manages contributions to UN and other global and regional organisations. This is a common arrangement among donors. Australia's Treasury manages Australia's overall relationships with the international financial institutions but largely defers to AusAID, now DFAT, on matters relating to the operation and replenishment of their concessional financing arms. So you are right that Australia is and will remain a little more centralised in its management of multilateral contributions. (In fact this is true of ODA management generally. While AusAID and CIDA both managed the bulk of their countries's aid, CIDA's share was at last count just under 70 per cent and AusAID's just under 90 per cent.) At the same time, Canada is a much more generous donor to the multilateral system: in some recent years it has provided as much as 30 per cent of its aid as core contributions to multilateral organisations, by comparison with around 15 per cent in the case of Australia.

As I understand it, that's the pre-integration organisational structure. It basically glues the former AusAID's divisional structure onto DFAT's and makes a couple of preliminary moves, namely shifting some generic corporate services functions and AusAID's G20 branch across to DFAT. It's not 'interim' in the same sense as the Canadian structure, which is the post-integration one -- though subject to some further tweaking after a 90-day review.

There's an interim organisation chart of the new amalgamated structure on the DFAT webpage. Follow the link and click for a pdf: http://www.dfat.gov.au/dept/

I think this is an excellent paper and the authors are to be congratulated. I would like to see the concept taken further: to think through the best means of both getting a better understanding of development assistance; identifying 'aid that works' and serves the national interest; and of expressing the outomes of the apparently large number of aid effectiveness reviews in clear and consistent language, tested against understood criteria. The journey may well lead to surprising outcomes that will recommend radical changes in the nature of our aid programs, even to the dropping of old linear concepts and definitions of aid. Such an approach should seek to broaden the constituency base for aid to embrace some unusual suspects.

Better than Department of Foreign Affairs, Humanitarian Assistance and Trade (DFAHT).

hhhmmmm...almost at the exact same moment I post this good news it turns out things have taken a turn for the worse again: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/15/amazon-deforestation-increased-one-third

Hi Sean, She doesn't mention that explicitly -- although I imagine it must be part of the story. However, it clearly isn't the whole story. And also, she talks of significant reaforestation going on in some countries too. Terence

Hi Terence. Bandwidth will prevent me from listening to this until the end of the month but I'm wondering if she discusses one factor not mentioned above: is the rate of deforestation slowing because most of the easily accessible forest has already been felled? I also wonder if there are parallels with other rainforest - e.g. Solomons?