International Development Policy: First Impressions

Australia isn’t wavering on its flagship priorities.

Promoting gender equality, social inclusion and the rights of people with disabilities has long been a mainstay of our development program, and the Government is unsurprisingly continuing with this approach. This makes sense – Australia is known for this work and has built significant sectoral expertise in these areas, which will continue to stand it in good stead. On a similar note, humanitarian assistance is another constant and unsurprisingly highlighted.

Since its election in 2022, the Government’s made it clear that it will take a scaled-up approach on climate change, and this is unsurprisingly a major focus of the new policy. It’s a relief to see the acknowledgment of the inherent tie between domestic and international action here and the incorporation of climate change objectives in the Performance and Delivery Framework.

We’re staying the course on geographic focus.

Again, naming the Indo-Pacific as Australia’s main area of bilateral focus is unsurprising. We know that development of this region is crucial for Australia’s interests, and sensible given the small scale of funding available. But it also means that stakeholders advocating for our development dollar to be directed towards regions of the world where the most absolute poverty remains – e.g., Sub-Saharan Africa – will be disappointed.

Locally-led development was always going to be in there.

There are no surprises that the Government has paid particular attention to locally-led development, including putting down a number of initiatives to back up the rhetoric. This intention spans across political and community leaders, as well as civil society organisations although the commitments may fall short of stakeholder ambitions.

The age-old question of geostrategic competition.

While the policy includes a handful of subtle nods to the PRC’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific (committing Australia to being the region's “partner of choice”), there is a notable silence on whether navigating strategic competition is also a key objective of the development program. Where other donors are tackling this issue head-first – be it Japan naming it explicitly, USAID developing its own separate response, or New Zealand naming it (and development) in its National Security Strategy – the policy is largely silent on the aid for influence debate. Ideally, this policy reflects the nuanced position of some development experts, who see Australia’s development agenda best advanced in parallel to its geopolitical agenda, rather than subordinate to it. But there’s also a chance this silence perpetuates the current pressures on the development program to be everything to everyone, all at once.

There’s a raft of implementation and impact questions.

The biggest question on our minds is whether the Development Partnership Plans (DPPs) will be the panacea the new policy promises they’ll be. This isn’t the first time an aid policy has identified country plans as the place where lofty visions will come to life. Yet experience over the last decade casts serious doubt on their utility and usefulness – once set, there’s a tendency for them to sit on the shelf while DFAT staff go ahead and respond to the priorities of the day. There’s a lot of work ahead – and it will need to be rapidly executed – for this vision to be realised.

The policy was refreshingly honest about the need to disrupt the current risk appetite in DFAT to encourage greater experimentation and innovation (p.31). But will this change happen – or will the bureaucratic incentives around risk management and a low tolerance for public failure mean Australia keeps playing it safe?

Starting with the Ministers and trickling down into other areas of the policy, the ambition to communicate a program that all of Australia can be proud of is admirable – but fraught with challenges. DFAT’s new Strategic Communications Division will have its work cut out for it to walk the line between communicating successes (as the Ministers wish), while at the same time navigating an increased risk appetite (owning things going wrong) and transparency mandate. All three things are very welcome – how they work together is to be tested.

There are some critical success requirements that are yet to be operationalised.

The policy rightly identifies the importance of building connections between Australia and the region. This is sensible for a modern development program – but a question remains over what connections achieve what goal. Australia could connect with different partner countries on almost any issue and for almost any purpose – avoiding tokenism will be key here.

There are several nods to the need for coordination and coherence across all areas of the policy. Donor coordination is a perennial challenge, and everyone agrees better coordination leads to better results – but the conundrum is always how. The policy doesn’t have a clear answer. Stronger coordination across the Australian government agencies is also a no-brainer, but there are serious barriers to overcome. It’s unclear how the whole-of-government aspirations of the policy will be brought to life. The gender equality strategy, and stronger action on climate change, are likely platforms to drive this.

The budget elephant in the strategy room is very much still here.

The policy flags a number of changes that are needed across multiple levels of implementation: new ways of thinking, new ways of working, and new initiatives to get going. While there are hints that there’ll be greater, more transparent use of non-ODA spending to achieve development outcomes and commitment to be both creative and disciplined, with no new money, we can’t help but wonder how the Government is going to pull this off. How we justify such a boutique program – and our position near the bottom of the global rankings on aid generosity – remains unknown.

Focus - and therefore protection against geographic, thematic, and timeline drift.

We’ve seen previous development policies lose impact when they’re not clear enough on what matters - allowing the definition of what development needs, and what’s in Australia’s interests to address, to expand. This policy lists climate, gender, disability, infrastructure, locally-led leadership, civil society, governance, and more as important. Add into this a vague statement of when we’ll engage in activities outside the Indo-Pacific, and no clear timeline for the raft of commitments, and it’s potentially a recipe for continuing the ‘everything is important’ approach to Australian development. If everything’s a priority, then nothing is. We’ll have our eye on what mechanisms are put in place to guide policymakers. Day-to-day decisions will be made by busy people weighing up apples with oranges – let’s hope they have more than the policy’s headline statements to guide them through.

The DFAT capability deficit features – but the underlying drivers of the problem remain unaddressed.

We were heartened to see in both this year’s budget and the policy such a big focus on the much-needed capability uplift for DFAT. It’s commendable that the department will appoint Senior Responsible Officers for development programs and that staff will receive further training and encouragement to do postings in the Indo-Pacific, alongside improved career pathways for locally engaged staff. However, the Government has not addressed the underlying drivers of Australia’s development capability deficit. The overwhelming focus is on DFAT’s contracting mechanics and an assumption that more skills will result in greater capability, rather than creating the incentives to be a great development policymaker – and have a career in development in the first place.

The performance framework appears to be more of a monitoring framework.

The policy’s accompanying performance framework is a great piece of architecture, but there are some serious measures missing. Tier two is purported to be the key performance indicator tier for measuring the impact and contribution of Australian assistance to the region’s development. What appears instead are a set of monitoring indicators that lack concrete targets, ambitions, and a clear way to assess the overall direction of travel. So, we’re left wondering how we’ll be able to make a judgement on what all this effort is adding up to.

Technology is named as a challenge. How we’ll tackle it remains a mystery.

Apart from a nod to this in how we’ll work with Southeast Asia, there’s little on how exactly Australia intends to get to grips with the ubiquitous challenge that is technological change, despite it being named as a central trend shaping development. Where Australia has taken baby steps into the land of technology for development, the way it will grapple with the impact of technology on development remains unclear. When it does determine its approach, it’ll have to be multi-sectoral.