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Development cooperation advances New Zealand's well-being by contributing to New Zealand's relationships with partner countries and the building of a secure, equitable and prosperous world. Contributing to effective development of others strengthens New Zealand's reputation as a trusted partner and as a good international citizen. It responds to New Zealanders' desire to "do their bit" to address genuine need and to do it well.
The central focus within this outcome is the pursuit of sustainable economic development. The core geographic focus is the Pacific region. The Pacific will receive an increasing proportion of New Zealand's development assistance over the period with the goal of lifting the region's economic performance.
In the Pacific, the central focus on sustainable economic development will involve three broad areas of action:
Sustainable economic development is necessary to address poverty. It is underpinned by health, education, a healthy environment, accountable governments with competent service delivery, and a regulatory environment and infrastructure that facilitates private sector development.
The Government's development cooperation programme will involve managing ODA, policy engagement on international development issues and contributing a development perspective to whole-of-government initiatives.
The Ministry has identified a set of high-level measures to assess our progress against this outcome in the period to 2013. These are:
Sustainable, long-term improvements in some of the performance indicators outlined above will be achieved over decades rather than years. The Ministry will complement reporting on progress against the medium- to long-term indicators above, with separate annual reporting on the effectiveness and impact of ODA activities and programmes. This will give a picture of short-to-medium term outcomes that build towards the medium - to longer-term objectives. New Zealand makes a contribution to these development outcomes together with a range of other players therefore direct attribution is not possible.top of page
Progress towards development outcomes depends on the policies, capability and capacity of developing countries. New Zealand must work with and through official and civil society channels in developing countries to be effective. We must work alongside other donor countries and development agencies.
In developing programmes and activities, cross-cutting issues such as gender, environment, human rights and youth will be pursued as a means to ensure good outcomes and to manage risks. In order to improve the effectiveness of our development assistance, we will look to support larger, longer-term and more comprehensive initiatives, with clearly identified development outcomes. We will aim to design well-coordinated programmes with other donors, which are closely aligned to partner country needs.
In 2010/11, we will manage ODA totalling $525 million including administration expenses.
The key priorities for assistance are:
We will increase our direct support to countries in the Pacific region over the coming four-year period. We will complement this with support to regional programmes and regional agencies where we are confident they provide effective solutions to the collective challenges facing Pacific countries. New Zealand's direct support to the Pacific will be focused on the following countries: Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Tokelau, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, Fiji and Tuvalu. We will emphasise infrastructure development (including transport and energy), tourism, private sector development, agriculture and fisheries.
We will maintain engagements in the countries of Southeast Asia - specifically Indonesia, Viet Nam, Timor-Leste, Lao PDR, the Philippines and Cambodia. We will continue to target niche regional engagements in Africa and Latin America.
We will contribute to the core funding, governance and delivery work of key international agencies like the UN and international banks where their work and their focus complements our international development priorities. We will engage to strengthen their performance and to promote reforms that improve agencies' efficiency and effectiveness.
We will continue to provide humanitarian support (including rehabilitation and reconstruction) following natural disasters and conflict worldwide, including in Afghanistan.
Recognising that NGOs have proven capability and competence in supporting international development and providing aid, we will continue to support them where they are demonstrated to be effective and efficient.
The Ministry is responsible for assisting New Zealanders in distress overseas, including in the event of a natural disaster or other large-scale emergency. The Ministry also seeks to mitigate risks to New Zealanders by raising the awareness of New Zealanders travelling and living overseas of the importance of preparedness, and of the Ministry's consular role.
The primary test of whether the Ministry has protected the rights of New Zealanders abroad is whether the recipients of consular services are satisfied with the assistance provided - in short, whether they consider their rights have been protected. Detailed information on the Ministry's measures of the quality of the consular service it provides are set out in the Estimates 2010/11 under Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade - Performance Information for Appropriations.
We are in the process of developing systematic and cost-effective measures of our effectiveness in raising the awareness of New Zealanders travelling overseas.
We will seek to continue the professional and efficient management of individual consular cases. Through the ongoing Safe Travel campaign, we will raise the awareness of New Zealanders travelling and living overseas of the importance of preparedness, and of the Ministry's consular role. We will undertake robust contingency planning for emergency responses, in particular around major events.
The Ministry has set itself an ambitious set of performance targets for the medium-term. The measures we have chosen are designed to challenge the organisation to think creatively about what it is trying to achieve for New Zealanders, and express this in real terms. They are also a means to answer the question "are we doing the right things?".
Our outcome performance measures form the top layer of a larger system of performance measurement that the Ministry is developing in order to manage its business better. The Ministry's measures of the key services it provides - aimed at answering the question, "are we doing things well?" - can be found in the Information Supporting the Estimates.
Some of the outcome measures require qualitative judgements about the amount of progress being made. We will continue to work over time to identify means to ensure that these judgements are robust, and are seen to be robust.
A number of the outcome measures chosen are not able to be directly affected by the Ministry. We do, however, expect to make a significant contribution to improvements against each of the measures. Achieving many of the targets we have set ourselves will require us to demonstrate intellectual leadership, and to use that intellectual contribution to leverage the resources of others. This is the essence of diplomacy in an interconnected world.
The Ministry is still in the process of setting specific targets against the outcome measures where these are relevant.
We will be reporting on the contribution our interventions have made to
improvements against these measures in our 2010/11 Annual Report.
[6] Subject to data availability, these “key partners” include the following countries and territories: Cook Islands,
Niue, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji.
[7]In addition to the Pacific countries and territories listed above, “key partners” for this and other indicators
include Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Viet Nam, Philippines, Cambodia and Lao PDR.
[8] The Millennium Development Goals are: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary
education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat malaria, HIV and TB; ensure environmental sustainability; and develop a global partnership
for development. Each of these goals has precise quantitative targets, available from UN websites
and elsewhere.
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