The Pacific region is also lagging badly in meeting the goals, and Australia’s approach towards aid for the region has again been criticized.
Just before the Sept. 25 U.N. meeting, at which governments are expected to increase their commitments to meeting the millennium goals, a Lowy Institute report says Australian aid is ineffective in helping Pacific countries meet the goals.
Fifty percent of the population of Papua New Guinea live below the poverty line, compared to 41percent in sub-Sahara Africa, the report says.
“Papua New Guinea is on Africa standards, if not higher, and it is quite worrying for Australia, given they are our nearest neighbor,” said the Melanesia program director at the Lowy Institute, Jenny Hayward-Jones.
Hayward-Jones said she welcomed the shift in rhetoric by the Rudd government to Pacific partnerships that tied aid to improved governance, but she said this “doesn’t get away from the problem that aid continues to be delivered from government to government.”
Australia will spend A$999.5 million ($844.2 million) on aid in the Pacific this year, but only a small proportion of that will go towards private sector initiatives. Half of the aid money is spent on technical assistance.
Hayward-Jones said investing in small businesses, microcredit schemes, and public-private partnerships to maintain roads and ports and provide health and education services, would produce more tangible benefits.
Following the lead of the U.S. and Britain, the Australian government could encourage corporate sector investment in its developing neighbors, she said.
The head of the U.N. Development Program’s Pacific center, Gary Wiseman, told the Fiji Times the Pacific had been quite weak in meeting the millennium goals, and food and fuel price rises had made things worse.
“Melanesian countries, including Fiji, have been losing ground in the face of political and civil uncertainty and weak governance structures,” he said.
Hayward-Jones said while “political stability is tremendously important,” fostering the business community would lessen reliance on having good political leaders in place.
