The Don’t Corrupt Aid campaign has raised awareness of possible changes to New Zealand’s government aid agency, NZ Aid. The concern was/is predominantly two-fold. The first is that the government was seeking to fold NZ Aid back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thus removing its semi-autonomous status. It has been argued that this would reduce the effectiveness of our aid dollars. The second concern was around the shifting of the aim of NZ Aid away [...]

In a press release, the Greens have raised a concern over comments made by the Prime Minister regarding the use of New Zealand aid money to subsidise Air New Zealand to continue flight links between Samoa, Tonga and the U.S in the face of those routes being discontinued. There is a legitimate concern that if links between these countries were to halt, the tourism industries of Samoa and Tonga would suffer, thus jobs would be [...]

The current situation we have been putting a spotlight on with NZAid and Murray McCully has been a revealing issue. What it has revealed relates to the fragility of democracy, the reality of political speak and the danger of preconceived agendas. I did not vote for either of our major parties here in Aotearoa/New Zealand, but in my role as a radio announcer I had the pleasure of listening to the thoughts and opinions of [...]

A new website kicked off yesterday afternoon as part of a public campaign that we are involved in www.dontcorruptaid.org.nz If you have been following this blog you will now be aware of the plans the Foreign Minister has to fold NZ Aid back into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The majority of development experts agree that this is a bad idea. We want to send him a message that the New Zealand public [...]

New Zealand’s aid budget, while not above scrutiny, should not become an easy target for government tinkering, said TEAR Fund executive director Stephen Tollestrup. Mr Tollestrup was reacting to comments made by Foreign Minister Murray McCully that New Zealand’s aid budget payments were creating a culture of `hand outs’. The minister also suggested that the goal of poverty elimination was too wide and amounted to shoving money out of a helicopter. Mr Tollestrup believes New [...]

The New Zealand Herald ran an article this morning on an issue that many in the NGO sector are aware of, namely a proposed shift in how the organisation that facilitates New Zealand government foreign aid is structured. At the moment, the budget for foreign aid is facilitated through an entity called NZAid. I do not wish to go into the details of how NZAid is structured, its history and the proposed future, what I do [...]