How can NGO's and Ausaid combine efficiently to provide aid?

The concept of aid is regarded as a worthwhile thing, however, the issue about how, where and who the aid should be administered to is often open to public debate. Public funds should always be subject to scrutiny and therefore how Ausaid distributes their funds is of particular interest.

The Ausaid NGO Cooperation Program was established to ensure that funding for aid is given to accredited NGO's to ensure that the aid is delivered in accordance with the public scrutiny. To be eligble, NGO's must submit an Annual Development Plan that shows what they wish to achieve with the funds from Ausaid and other sources.

The system obviously does not guarantee that funds are not wasted, but it does put some focus on accountability of funds. The issue of adminstration costs could potentially undermine the efficiency of both Ausaid and NGO's, however, these organisations must employ many people and endure running costs for them to be able to do their work.

Click on this link to find out more about how Ausaid and NGO's work together.

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/ngos/ancp.cfm

Benefits of foreign aid outweigh costs

There is often criticism about government funds being used to support foreign aid when there are hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure requirements within Australia needing funding. With tens of thousands of Australians homeless and reliant on charity to live from day to day, there seems to be some validity to this thought.

In addition to this dilemma, there is the environmental and social costs to the recipient countries who are often railroaded by the donor countries and can suffer with unwanted changes to their environment and their culture.

To clarify the debate, there should be a distinction between whether foreign aid is worthwhile and how it is delivered. The effectiveness of getting the right type and amount of aid to the right people at the right time will impact whether it has the desired impact. If it is not done properly, then it will make people think that the costs outweigh the benefits.

However, I would argue that the benefits overall exceed the costs because the humanitarian costs of saving lives in the short term and building up independence by creating opportunities for economic growth in the long term has been proven as indisputably worthwhile. The challenge is to reduce the costs to recipient countries so the benefits for all are enhanced.

The following video talks at little about food aid and how it could be done better. It also mentions 5 million children will die this year due to malnutrition.

AusAid

Although Australia's aid budget is below the UN suggestion of 0.70% of Gross National Income (GNI), at .25% it still translates to a lot of money. To best deploy these funds to needy causes there must be a strategy and method for getting value for money. AusAid is the government authority charged with the responsibility of spending the aid budget. They work closely with NGO's (Non-government organisations) to turn these funds into aid that will fulfill their objectives.

The objectives are varied, but revolve around long term and short term initatives. The short term objectives are usually based on disaster relief (eg: 2004 Tsunami) whre emergency medical and food drops are required. The long term objectives are based around education (seen as a means of overcoming imbedded poverty), and good governance(aimed at encouraging better and stronger political systems to ensure corruption and civil unrest is kept at bay).

The work being done by AusAid is indisputably beneficial to all parties. The issue is whether the aid is being deployed effectively and efficiently. By that I mean, does AusAid spend the aid budget in the best possible way?