The Intel

The 2024-25 PADC is Government's most substantive yet.

Some headlines: Australia met its $1.3 billion climate finance commitment to the Pacific and its IDEARS disability equity target, the development program's first formal performance target for disability equity and rights. Overall investment performance improved to 90%, though DFAT is transparent that the gain came from efficiency scores rather than effectiveness.

A few other things that stood out:

First up, the inaugural Biennial Perceptions Survey records an encouraging 86% satisfaction rating from Australia’s partners. Interestingly, the lowest scores come from the Pacific, the region receiving the largest share of Australian ODA and in which Australia has its largest presence. Worth watching that gap as future surveys land.

Next, in a period of ongoing multilateral disruption, the expanded summary of multilateral performance assessments is worth a look (it includes an articulation of Australia's UN advocacy reform priorities). DFAT identifies the potential for UNDP to better lead strategic policy coherence and systemic efficiencies across the UN development system. Other priority efforts include: For MDBs, advocating for better social and environmental safeguards in procurement, and for humanitarian agencies: supporting agencies to adapt to rising levels of conflict and disaster alongside further funding cuts.  

Third, a snapshot of the progress of the Development Partnership Plans offers some interesting statistics, but tells us relatively little about whether Australia is achieving the ambitious agendas set out in those plans. The real test comes as mid-cycle reviews begin this year.

Lastly, the non-ODA picture. The PADC captures some non-ODA activity, including AIFFP loans, budget support lending, and private finance mobilised. But as the Lab's recent work on Pacific integration and non-ODA support makes clear, Australia's development footprint extends well beyond that. The PADC is a crucial accountability document for ODA spend. It is just not the whole picture, and as non-ODA and integration activity grows, the need to track that spending and its results grows with it.

One of the most striking takeaways from DFAT’s latest Performance of Australian Development Cooperation (PADC) report is a sharp drop in people directly supported for basic needs, despite growing and well-recognised insecurity. The number of people reached to improve food security fell from 1.5 million people in 2023–24 to just over 800,000 in 2024–25. The number of people supported to access drinking water services also declined from more than 2 million to just over 750,000 in 2024-25. This raises concerns about Australia’s contribution to poverty reduction and SDG outcomes in the Pacific, where approximately five million people still lack access to basic drinking water as reported by the World Health Organization.

There are positives. The report shows that Australia is responsive to growing regional risk of climate change, shown through the increased investment in climate adaptation and disaster resilience. However, scrutiny is needed. Ensuring that investments are not inflated toward climate finance targets where adaptation is only a secondary objective, may avoid concerns about greenwashing.

Humanitarian assistance has expanded, with DFAT acknowledging that escalating crises will continue to drive demand. The unanswered question is whether this recognition will translate into sustained, predictable funding for the most acute crises, rather than reactive spikes.

On how Australia delivers aid – effectiveness remains high overall, with investments addressing gender equality increasing from 79% to 81% this year, and disability equity meeting targets (improving significantly from 51% to 60%). These are both very welcome gains. Encouragingly, the report provides clearer tracking of funding flowing to local partners, particularly through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). Now, to truly advance localisation, DFAT must reduce compliance burdens and respond to Pacific partners’ calls for longer‑term, flexible funding, especially for grassroots and women‑led organisations.

These documents are never going to be page-turners — but they are an important accountability, transparency and learning tool. So, it’s good that the government has reinstated reporting on the performance of Australia’s Development Cooperation. And it is clear that the team that pulls them together has put in a lot of work. This third iteration of the PADC report is comprehensive and builds on last year's report in areas like funding flows to local partners, multilateral assessments, non-grant finance, and climate and gender commitments.

This edition also includes a summary of results from DFAT inaugural biennial perceptions survey, another commitment under Labor’s 2023 International Development Policy. While some of the results — like Pacific respondents saying they want longer-term funding — are interesting, it’s hard to interpret this snapshot without a list of the specific questions and response options that respondents were given. This is especially important if these results are going to be used as the baseline for future surveys. And even though this PADC covers the period prior to completion of the recent OECD 2025 peer review of Australia’s development program, it would have been good to have at least some indication of what the government thought of its findings and recommendations and what it might do with them. 

Ultimately, what matters most is how these reports are actually used to improve development impact. Many of the common findings from projects that have been found unsatisfactory at completion are neither new nor surprising— overly ambitious or complex designs, lack of partner commitment, and/or poor MEL frameworks. More training and tweaks to program guidance will only go so far. As the OECD review points out, it is DFAT’s broader institutional and internal incentives that will drive lasting change, or a lack thereof.