The Lab's Development Policy Submission

Time and again, the undoing of an effective development policy has been the inability to focus efforts. But focusing is difficult to do in a time when everything is urgent, important, and interconnected.

The ability to focus the program, while overwhelming, can be achieved through making difficult choices, providing solid decision-making mechanisms, and an ability to call on the right insight and voices at the right time.

What does lack of focus look like?

History tells us that we have a focus problem: regional focus, focus on comparative advantage, focus on delivering in the national interest, focus on those most in need – without knowing what the program’s focus is, it’s impossible to mobilise resources according to priorities.

But past attempts to course-correct, while not ineffective, are unlikely to work moving forward. No longer will a more concise purpose statement or brief references to ‘national interest’ in a strategy document counter the inevitable scope creep that leads to ineffective Australian development cooperation. In the Lab’s ‘Review of Reviews’ paper, we found that a vague (but not too vague) purpose, an unclear national interest meaning, and unknown measurements in critical areas like comparative advantage led to an ever expanding and therefore at-times ineffective program.

And this is not a problem faced by Government alone. When put to the top development thinkers in Australia, the task was difficult. The Lab’s ‘Pulse Check | 2022 Development Strategy’ asked a diverse group of practitioners, academics, national security hawks, and former bureaucrats to make these tough choices. While there were choices made, the more interesting finding was that these choices diverged across the different expertise and backgrounds. Consensus is not easily reached.

What the focus of the development policy should be will depend on a range of factors – how you believe development is best achieved, megatrends facing Australia and the region, partner country needs, and more. Regardless of what Australia chooses to prioritise, the most critical action is making the choice. Being all things to all people hasn’t served us well in the past, and there’s no reason to believe this will change in the future. Once we’ve decided what we will — and won’t — do, we can begin focussing our efforts.

What do we do about it?

At the Lab, we are unconvinced that Australia has the ability to focus the program with its current mechanisms. To tackle this, the Lab recommends the following three courses of action.

One, provide points of clarification (both statements and tools) to avoid focus drift within Government. This could look like defining what national interests the development program serves (through Ministerial statements, Foreign Policy White Paper updates, and the like), providing supporting documentation that defines high-level policy positions and provides decision-making matrices, and providing a clear way to understand what Australia’s comparative advantage is and how it is deployed.

Two, establish new (and increase existing) feedback loops to easily and rapidly distil the perspectives and critical insights from both our partners and the development community here in Australia.

Three, resist the urge to ‘do it all’ through a renovated dynamic and impact-oriented country planning process (see below).

Policy is only one part of the puzzle. Regardless of how the new development policy shapes up, there’s much more work to do in ensuring its implementation is successful.

Another lesson we can draw from our past missteps across the program is that assuming a policy will translate into practice in over 20 countries - without serious investment in the systems, decision-making, culture, skills and capability of an implementation phase - is a big mistake.

Where does the policy-to-practice gap appear?

For one, country planning. Where the rubber hits the road on translating policy into practice is through the processing of (1) identifying the development challenges facing a partner country; (2) identifying opportunities to support and assist the development aspirations of local leaders and communities; and (3) allocating Australian efforts, attention and resources to a handful of focuses. When done well, this ‘what, where, and how’ of country planning guides decisions and efforts to achieve development results. When done poorly, it results in a status quo development approach that is more about what Australia can do and less about the art of the possible. Presently, the country planning process is in flux after the expiration of most Australian country development strategies, and the installation of rapid response COVID-19 planning (which did not involve such extensive assessment). Serious renovation of country planning will be critical.

This also looks like real-time management for effectiveness, since knowing what works matters. And whilst the Office of Development Effectiveness was not without its challenges, it did signal an attempt on behalf of Government to have a clear-eyed look at how Australian development operates, what should change and what should improve. But managing for effectiveness can’t be outsourced to an evaluation unit. Senior management’s ability to both have, and use, high-level, real-time effectiveness information needs improvement in terms of systems, culture and management skills in the Department, according to former independent reviews.

This gap can also appear where the Government is unable to bring in those surrounding Government delivery in a coherent manner. Development experts in managing contractor organisations, NGOs, think tanks and academia, other Government agencies, and the general public all play a role in making sure the development policy comes to life, and need renewed engagement and dynamic mechanisms to do so.

What do we do about it?

The Lab believes that a renewed approach to implementation is needed. To tackle this, the Lab recommends the following three courses of action.

One, within six months of the policy’s publication, establish an implementation road map. This could include milestones for refreshed country planning; an alternative to the role the Office of Development Effectiveness once played; establishing a way to both determine, and program according to, Australia’s comparative advantage; and determine whole-of-Government coordination of all development efforts (perhaps through Cabinet-mandated responsibility to DFAT or PM&C).

Two, within the same time frame, kick start renewed capitalisation of the broader development ecosystem to capture creative thinking. This could look like: issuing an annual research agenda; secondment programs; fora for information exchange and better transparency efforts.

Three, within three years, conduct an independent review of the development program.