Discuss the importance of the Australian Governments Foreign Aid program
Aid is the transfer of money, goods, and skills from a developed country
to a developing country. The Australian Government Aid program
involves the six types of aids which are: emergency, tied, united, food,
technical assistance and project. This program is crucial to improving
the lives of the millions who live in poverty in Asia pacific and ensuring
regional security and promoting Australias trade linkage. The
Australian Government Foreign Aid program is important due to the
following reasons: as different part of the world needs the aid provided
by Australia, what this program involve to help different countries, the
advantages of the program and the disadvantage of this program, even
though there are disadvantages, people still need this program.
The Australian Government Aid program is managed by DFAT (The Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade). The budget for the Aid program is 5.7 billion dollars a years for 2014/15,
but over the next four years 4.5 billion is going to be cut from the program. Australian Aid
provides Aid to East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa,
the pacific, south and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of the Australian Aid
program is to reduce poverty, to improve relations and reducing conflicts. Also aimed at
helping people with low incomes, help developing countries to raise their standard of living
and to maximise the use of their resources in sustaining economic growth The Aid program
is tied to reach the Millennium Developing Goals and the Millennium Developing Goal is to
reduce global poverty by 2015.
The Australia aid program focuses more on the Asia Pacific regions and the largest recipient
is PNG and Indonesia, each receiving close to $500 million in 2011.
The importance of the Australian Government Aid program is evident in Indonesia. Australia
gives 581 million dollars to Indonesia and the budget estimation is Australias aid program
to Indonesia is designed to support prosperity, stability and security in one of the closest
neighbours. The program includes a range of investments designed to promote
sustainable economic growth, good governance and stability. Australia provides high
quality, flexible and responsive assistance. We focus on strengthening institutions and
infrastructure to ensure Indonesia provides an environment receptive to trade and
investment, while also developing its human capital, particularly women and girls.
Australia Aid program is helping Indonesia to ensure that more children can access
education by creating new school places in the countrys poorest and most remote districts.
This program is also strengthening their management skills and education officials to better
manage their education budget. Indonesia is improving by 2015 that every Indonesia child
receives at least a basic of nine years of education and by 2020 each child receives twelve
years of education. The program is developing a national system to improve school
management and leadership.
The Australia Aid program is working with Indonesia for health needs and children by
improving health systems. Australia is also helping Indonesia to strengthen public health
policy, planning and budgeting as this will improve essential primary health care services
and make them more accessible and affordable for the Indonesias poor. Australia is also
improving health facilities, train healthcare providers and raise public awareness of
maternal and child health service. Australias funding also helps tackle HIV through needle
exchange, methadone and safe sex programs and through expanding access to
antiretroviral treatment in Indonesias Papuan provinces.
The advantage of this program for cultural is so it would be more of a compassionate
society, it helps those people who are less fortunate, it reduce poverty in developing nations
and it create links and strengthen ties between nation. For economic, it increased the
employment opportunity and income generation in developing countries through
investments in areas such as infrastructure, rural development, land reform and financing.
For Geopolitical, it can ensure that our neighbouring nations are stable which is will prevent
terrorism and crime. This increased spending in the Pacific region will ensure stability in the
region prevent future spending and there will be improved future regional relations.
The disadvantage of this program for cultural is equity issues, the concept of fairness and
justices, which means that the most in need of the aid may not receive it. For economic,
there is an opportunity cost associated with giving aid - the cost of giving up ne opportunity
in order to pursue another. For geopolitical, there is harm to international relations where
Australians approach can be seen as an incursion, which could lead to strained relations.
This Australian Aid program is important because it provides aid to different places around
the world, which is actually helping the poverty people. This program help countries to
reduce the amounts of poverties in each country. It is important to bring up the life of other
people so they could have a better education, a better place to live and a healthy place to
live.
Bibliography
"Overview of Australia's aid program to Indonesia ..." 2015.
<http://dfat.gov.au/geo/indonesia/development-assistance/pages/development-assistance-
in-indonesia.aspx> [Accessed on 11th of April 2015]
"Where we give aid - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade." 2015.
<http://dfat.gov.au/aid/where-we-give-aid/Pages/where-we-give-aid.aspx> [Accessed on
11th of April 2015] - This is an useful website because this website helped to find all the
places where the aid is given to. This is a very reliable website as it is a government website.
"Overview of Australia's aid program to Indonesia ..." 2015.
<http://dfat.gov.au/geo/indonesia/development-assistance/pages/development-assistance-
in-indonesia.aspx> [Accessed on 22nd of April 2015]
"Education assistance in Indonesia - Department of Foreign ..."
<http://dfat.gov.au/geo/indonesia/development-assistance/Pages/education-assistance-in-
indonesia.aspx> [Accessed on 22nd of April 2015] This is an useful source of information
because it has all the information of education in Indonesia. This website is a very reliable
website as it is a government website.
"Health assistance in Indonesia - Department of Foreign ..." 2015.
<http://dfat.gov.au/geo/indonesia/development-assistance/Pages/health-assistance-in-
indonesia.aspx> [Accessed on 22nd of April 2015]
"Australia's foreign aid spending: how much and where ..." 2013.
<http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2013/aug/22/australia-
foreign-aid-spending-data> [Accessed on 24th of April 2015]
"Independent review of Australian aid program | Devpolicy ..." 2013.
<http://devpolicy.org/independent-aid-review2010116/> [Accessed on 24th of April 2015]
