Development Survey | Pulse Check 2022

Development Survey 2022
Initial Results

As the Government puts pen to paper on its new development policy, we are facing some critical choices. But there are divergent views on what those choices should be.
What are three things Australia can do to realise the Government’s commitment to genuine development partnerships?

From the responses, the top five things named were:  

Improve partner involvement and localisation efforts

This sounded like: annual partnership conversations in each country; robust conversations with partner governments on performance and commitments; co-designing and co-delivering projects with communities; be led by local actors.  

Improve DFAT capability

This sounded like: building aid capability and literacy in DFAT; urgently invest in development expertise in DFAT; upskill DFAT staff, including sending secondees to the multilateral banks to build a stronger network as well as capabilities.  

Change aid management

This sounded like: revamp DFAT's design, implementation and MEL processes; stop micro-managing every project; more flexible arrangements; rebalancing DFAT's approach away from risk/compliance towards flexibility, adaptiveness and locally led solutions.  

Improve accountability and transparency

This sounded like: strengthen transparency and accountability and feedback loops with recipient countries, including through dialogue with civil society; publish joint development commitments; more transparency and accountability; promote transparency.  

Focus on long-term strategic direction

This sounded like: have long-term (10-year) strategies; think longer-term; support over time; have strategic responses to long-term development challenges.

RANKING RESULTS

What regions and/or countries should the bilateral focus of the program be?

Answers varied across the globe, and for different reasons, so in round two we asked our respondents: "If you had to allocate bilateral development spending, where should the focus be?

RANKING RESULTS

Next up, we asked what the program should be doing (and what it should stop doing). Click through to see the results.

Dedicated investment by donors in coordinating and aligning their assistance will put Pacific nations in the driver's seat.

There is surprisingly little donor coordination activity in the Pacific beneath the political speechmaking and commitment to coordination. Any improvement will see a return on investment for Pacific communities and donors alike.

The focus of these dialogues would be less on meetings and more on practical pipelines: the technical coordination of project timelines and their alignment to domestic partner priorities.

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