Comments

A good question Jason. The authors of the visualisation must have been incorporating more than just ODA in their calculations of development flows (notice they call it 'development aid' not ODA). Still, when looking at <a href="http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REF_TOTAL_ODF#" rel="nofollow">their source</a> of development aid the numbers still don't quite add up. I would have to do some more digging into it but overall I still think the visualisation does a great job in showing how remarkable remittance and migration patterns are. Regards.

Correction: Garth Luke has pointed out to me an error in these calculations. In fact, the estimate for the aid increase in 2016-17 should be $547 million (not $380 million), giving an average increase for the three years in the forward estimates of $577 million (not $520 million), and leaving a required increase of $1.9 billion in the final year (not $2.1 billion). Thanks Garth.

I am quite sure the answer is yes. However, the answer doesn’t matter greatly because it is estimated that only $13 million of the $236 million will be spent in 2013-14. At this point we don't know what, if any, further funding might be allocated from the aid budget to meet in-Australia asylum-seeker costs in 2014-15 and beyond. Stephen Howes and I included a question about this in an <a href="https://devpolicy.org/a-whole-new-set-of-questions-asylum-seekers-in-png-communities-20130805/" rel="nofollow">earlier post</a> about the $236 million allocation in the August Budget Statement. We noted that the government’s more thoroughgoing offshore processing policy will, in theory, eliminate all costs associated with asylum seekers living in the Australian community and awaiting determination of their claims, other than those associated with people who arrived before the regional ‘solution’ was announced. Thus one would assume that at least some of the $375 million appropriated to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) in the May budget is no longer required to meet domestic costs and could have been reallocated for spending in PNG to cover the estimated $13 million expenditure requirement in 2013-14. However, there is no indication in the August Budget Statement that the $236 million allocation for community-based arrangements in PNG includes any funding from the $375 million previously allocated. In fact the statement says that the $236 million ‘has been offset from a reduction in AusAID’s budget’, whereas the $375 million, while reportable as ODA, forms part of DIAC’s budget. There’s a separate and much larger question about the fate of the two amounts of $375 million transferred from AusAID’s budget to DIAC’s in December 2012 and May 2013. As I have commented in the past, no policy basis for determining these amounts was ever made public and the amounts seemed larger than might have been expected if the relevant expenditures were to meet the requirements of ODA eligibility. DIAC’s Secretary admitted in early May, during Senate Estimates hearings, that DIAC was likely to underspend against the 2012-13 allocation. We don’t know whether and to what extend they did underspend, or what the consequences might have been for the 2012-13 final ODA outcome. If DIAC is going to fall short against the 2013-14 target, and can estimate how far short, the appropriate course of action would obviously be to return the excess funds to AusAID in sufficient time to allow them to be programmed in 2013-14.

Great visualisation. Good detail. But are those ODA figures accurate? $250 billion sounds way too high, see <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/sep/20/drop-aid-declining-will-global-partnership" rel="nofollow">this story</a> from The Guardian, which mentions a figure of $133 billion, nearly half of the figures above.

Robin, Is it your understanding that the $236m over 4 years for ‘unauthorised maritime arrivals living in community based arrangements’ in PNG is additional to the amounts already to be diverted for the support of asylum seekers in Australia? In the 2013-14 budget the Government said: 'To ensure predictable planning and management of the ODA budget, the Government will cap expenditure from the existing ODA funding envelope in any one year at $375 million.'

I don't know if I'd characterise this as simply a case of policy on the run. There's probably an element of that. The shift from processing in neighbouring countries to resettlement and community detention in those countries appears to lurch a little beyond the recommendations of the Houston report. The latter called for the implementation of 'processing options outside Australia for the determination of protection claims of those who arrive by irregular means'. However, in its discussion of processing arrangements with PNG and Nauru it did not propose local resettlement (or community detention). In the post above, though, my concern is more that the features and implications of the policy have not been canvassed openly enough. In response to your specific question, I didn't say above that it's not in Australia's policy interest to speed up the time taken to process asylum claims. I said, 'We know that the Australian government is in no hurry, as a matter of policy, to see asylum seekers’ claims processed'. That's a statement of fact about current policy, as embodied in the 'no-advantage' principle first articulated in the Houston report. As has often been pointed out, nobody knows exactly what average processing times would be consistent with this principle because there is in fact no clear point of comparison -- but the average will doubtless be measured in years. Aside from its assumed deterrent effect, slow processing obviously also confers the pragmatic advantage of deferring difficult decisions on where and how to resettle those found to be refugees.

Thank you for your on-going commentary on the recent Rudd government asylum seeker policies. One of the main points you appear to be making is that this is policy on the run and it is not clear that the government (Australian as well as the Pacific island governments) have a plan. My question is about one small point you make in this post. Why do you write that it is not in Australia's policy interest to speed up the time taken to process asylum claims?

Hey Ada, Thanks for your comments- and great work on an awesome and relevant pseudonym! I absolutely agree - technology is only a tool, albiet one that can significantly magnify the impact of the work aid agencies and workers do! It's fairly unarguable that AusAID has some catching-up to do in this area though. Whilst a strategy should only ever be the first step and has to set the right framework - the <a href="http://bit.ly/13j5MvZ" rel="nofollow">USAID experience</a> is a good example! - the bigger point is that more attention needs to be payed to this area to ensure we are using the most efficient and productive tools possible to achieve our aid and development objectives. Happy to continue the debate on Twitter- I'm on gerardtmccarthy. Cheers, Gerard McCarthy Director (Asia-Pacific) TechChange www.techchange.org

Technology is a tool, not an end unto itself. Aid agencies no more need a technology for development strategy than they do a manufacturing for development strategy, or a marketing for development strategy. There are enough useless strategies in aid agencies - the utility of yet another one is unclear.

What happens with PNG Citizenship that refugees may obtain. There is the question of whether refugees who obtain PNG citizenship will be allowed to enter Australia on the same conditions as any other PNGian? Will there be classes of approval based on refugee origin? Would this have to be countered by a further change in our Constitution? It goes to show that the whole affair was not properly thought through by either parties and that the rest of us were supposed to accept, not debate. Tony Flynn

Thanks Jo and Tess for both of these comments. I don't disagree with anything you say, though I don't know enough about the activities of the big Australian NGOs in the Pacific to evaluate your suggestion, Tess, that the organisations are tending toward homogeneity and a fondness for cookie cutters. However, our focus above is on the way aid resources are allocated to the big NGOs as a group, and among the organisations within that group. We think there are some interesting questions even in this limited domain. It's certainly true that the expansion of this group's resource envelope has the potential to change the way they operate in the field, though it will not necessarily do so. It's also true that it might reduce their appetite for criticising government policy though, again, it will not necessarily do so. They were all receiving quite a bit of support already, before the further expansion of funding in the post-2009 period. At the same time, the level of support they get from all AusAID sources is still minor in proportion to the level of funding they receive from community sources. My sense is that the ANCP Partners, and other NGOs for that matter, don't feel terribly constrained at present in what they can say and do in advocacy mode, provided they don't say or do it with support from the aid program. There was more of a problem in that regard in the earlier part of this decade.

An interesting post. Thank you. And to continue from Tess's last point in her comment, I see advocacy challenges as essential for NGOs to grapple with. In New Zealand, NGOs have been relatively silent regarding the ongoing erosion of the NZ government aid programme's attention to the most vulnerable people. Terence Wood and I argued in a conference paper last year that this was predominantly because NGOs didn't want to bite the hand that, albeit partially, fed it. And also the Minister sent strong signals about the potential consequences of earning his dislike: cutting funding to the Council for International Development and Global Focus Aotearoa, and attempting to sideline organisations that did speak out. I understand the difficulties, having managed NGOs myself. But NGOs are supposed to advocate for those whose voices are often silenced (aren't they?) and it is crucial they can do this with at least a degree of independence. This does not preclude NGOs from taking government money but it does require some careful thought and negotiation of the politics (ie: power relations) of it all.