Sowing the seeds of stability

In Vanuatu, New Zealand taxpayers are funding an advocacy training programme for men, run by women. Its aim is to challenge and change men's attitudes. Co-funded by New Zealand Aid, it's part of a regional effort targeting gender issues and inequality.

The programme makes a small dent in our $7.2 million aid budget for Vanuatu but you have to wonder how much it's doing to stave off unrest in a country plagued by corruption and rising crime, where disaffected youth roam the streets and where two-thirds of adults can't read or write.

In the Solomons, our $16 million annual aid programme is focused more on education. New Zealand's aim is to put a teacher in every classroom, some task in these scattered islands ravaged by years of conflict where schooling has had little priority.

In success stories like Samoa, we're focused more on economic development and strengthening the private sector.

New Zealand has spent $173 million this financial year on aid in the Pacific, more than half its total aid budget. Under the banner of reducing poverty, money is scattered around the islands on schemes ranging from water reticulation in Tongan villages to "capacity building" in the public service.

But when Chinatown in Honiara burns, or armed gangs in Dili kill and burn, it's worth asking whether the money is going up in smoke.

The April riots in the Solomons and last month's more violent upheaval in East Timor took New Zealand by surprise and offered sobering lessons for our aid and defence programmes.

They came after New Zealand and Australia had eased back defence and peacekeeping commitments after trumpeting the restoration of stable government in both countries.

Meanwhile our aid effort, a pittance of gross national income, was beavering away largely unnoticed. When New Zealand Aid representative Julie Affleck arrived in the Solomons in 2004 she found dilapidated schools stripped of equipment. No one was being paid and no new teachers trained.

Within a year, new primary level textbooks written and designed by Solomon Islanders had been delivered to more than 600 schools on dozens of islands. A school-building programme was under way with locals providing the labour and timber. But Affleck acknowledged the task that lay ahead was huge.

In East Timor, New Zealand Aid allocated $4.1 million in 2005/06 for programmes to improve governance, training, education scholarships and village projects, such as one which uses chicken waste to fatten farm fish.

Across the region, it's arguable that we should concentrate on economic growth, but New Zealand has a broad-brush, long-term focus: reforming corrections services in Vanuatu, putting books in primary schools, addressing domestic violence, training carpenters ...

When the wheels fall off to the extent seen in the Solomons and East Timor, the Defence Force and/or police are sent in a blaze of publicity. As soon as is convenient - too soon in hindsight in the recent crises - they are pulled out. But in our aid effort, not guns and uniforms, lies the seeds of long-term stability in the Pacific region. The question is: is it enough?

A telling indictment of our capability came last week when, after the sole power station on Niue was destroyed, the island had to wait for a Hercules to return from Dili to fly a replacement generator to Niue.

If New Zealand's entire aid budget went to East Timor or the Solomons, it could not have prevented the revival of chaos in those impoverished, highly factionalised nations. But that's not an excuse to say "why bother?".

"It tells us we have to be in for the long-haul," says political scientist John Henderson, of Canterbury University.

"The Chinatown riot showed how quickly things can deteriorate. You would have to say it was a failure of intelligence in terms of Chinatown, although a mob is unpredictable."

The way our aid budget is pepper-potted around Oceania, we may appear to be dipping toes in tropical waters. With just 4 million people, we're not expected to go overboard but proximity, and political and migration ties, mean we have had a leadership role in the south-eastern Pacific.

Henderson says New Zealand is now playing a secondary role. "We kidded ourselves we were a primary player, at least in the South Pacific."

Australia, worried by terrorism and international crime including drug trafficking, has become much more interventionist in the region while China and Taiwan are competing for influence in Oceania. But their aid tends to come with strings attached.

Last year, the Government increased its overseas aid budget by 21 per cent, a boost of nearly $60 million. More than half the extra money ($33.9 million) went to the Pacific. The overall increase took our foreign aid budget to $345 million, or 0.27 per cent of gross national income, a proportion little changed from the late 1990s.

It is barely a third of the OECD's target of 0.7 per cent of GNI.

And a chunk of it, $15 million, was for recovery from one-off disasters such as cyclones and the Boxing Day tsunami.

This year's Budget left aid funding at the same proportion of GNI, 0.27 per cent.

If it wasn't obvious already, the flare-ups in the Solomons and East Timor taught us that we can't go into troublespots for 18 months and then begin to disengage. Political scientist Rod Alley, of Victoria University, compares the Solomons and East Timor to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after World War II.

He questions whether there is a comprehensive strategy for recovery in the Solomons.

"Ramsi [the Australian-led regional assistance mission] is not sufficient. You need sustainable growth. Both Howard and Clark realise this is really long-haul stuff. It's pretty thankless and it has to be sold to taxpayers. It takes a special kind of skill, not just aid money."


It's stretching it to suggest that the kind of violence which has resurfaced in the Solomons and East Timor could easily spread to islands closer to home such as Vanuatu, Tonga or Fiji. But many of our neighbours harbour the potential for unrest - whether from ethnic tensions, political instability or poverty.

Steve Hoadley, an associate professor of political studies at Auckland University, has studied the South Pacific for 30 years. In a working paper for Victoria University's Centre for Strategic Studies, he pointed to ethnic tension and crime in Papua New Guinea, near-bankruptcy in Nauru, police and outer-island discontent in Vanuatu, ethnic discrimination and political tension in Fiji, suppression of the press and democracy in Tonga, and Kanak independence aims in New Caledonia as potential future sources of discord.

Hoadley says it's far more costly to sit and watch countries fail than to take preventive measures. "Peacekeepers will stay in Honiara for eight months and come home again and they may have to go back. That's the future - to douse the bushfires because breakdown of government will occur.

"It's a permanent problem and there's no way New Zealand can avoid dealing with it unless we seal our borders."

Former New Zealand defence analyst Jim Rolfe, who lectures at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies in Hawaii, says Timor and the Solomons show how difficult the process of state-building is.

"Building a state out of a whole lot of different identities is hugely difficult. The long-term solution is to develop programmes which help countries to become stable, but it's hard to build up the economy when democracy is delicate. Countries just can't jump into the 21st century and run a modern nation state overnight."

In the face of these challenges, New Zealand Aid may be on the right track, focusing on the elimination of poverty through education and improved governance - boosting public sector capability and the machinery of law and order. We're regarded as collaborative rather than paternalistic and our quality-rather-than-quantity approach has passed international scrutiny.

National MP and former diplomat John Hayes, on a fact-finding visit early this year, came across the grandiose new Ministry of Justice building paid for by China in Avarua, the Cook Islands' capital. He found it "more suited to Beijing than the tropical Cook Islands," he wrote in Hawkes Bay Today. "It does not comply with the Cook Islands building code. Glass used in the windows is thinner than it should be and therefore likely to blow out in the next cyclone. All internal signs are in Chinese language. All electrical wiring is to a Chinese colour pattern and cannot be understood by Cook Islands electricians."

China and Taiwan are using increased funding in their battle for one-upmanship, and to secure the support of Pacific countries at the United Nations. But this chequebook diplomacy brings fears of corruption. The backdrop to the Solomons riots was the election of pro-Taiwanese Snyder Rini as Prime Minister amid allegations of kickbacks.

New Zealand's approach may be more genuine but, for all the quality, there's consensus that we should be doing more in quantity terms.

Jim Rolfe says New Zealand is doing "what it can get away with" in aid provision. It has never got near the OECD's 0.7 per cent of gross national income benchmark for overseas aid. While only a few countries do, Rolfe says we "could do more."

Canterbury University's John Henderson, a former adviser to the Lange Government, warns that New Zealand risks becoming very much a minor player in the region.

"No, we haven't done enough, but I don't think we can ever do enough in areas such as the Solomons and East Timor where poverty is the real problem. It can't be done overnight."

Murray Boardman, a programme officer with World Vision, says a much more strategic approach to development is needed.

"We can't just do firefighting. There needs to be a paradigm shift in our thinking about what it takes to get good governance ... so that countries can defuse situations without reliance on external intervention.

"New Zealand needs to consider whether it wants to be a regional intervention force or to assist countries to development, through improved delivery of services and economic growth. That's an issue the politicians need to open up for debate."


NZ bilateral aid (Pacific and East Timor) 2005/06

Cook Islands: $6.2m

Focus on economic and social development, particularly outer islands.

* $2.47m for education including implementing new curriculum, graded readers to improve literacy, school refurbishment and training.
* Governance advice to NGOs, public sector
* Small business development
* Health specialist visits
* $10 million over next 3 years for cyclone recovery.
* $6 million, three-year programme in outer islands for infrastructure, including water and power, harbours, runways, markets, cyclone shelters.
* $5 million over five years for sustainable fisheries management.


East Timor: $4.1m

Focus on education, community development, governance and capacity-building in public service.

* Education, including study awards, English language training.
* Governance, including training, human rights action plan, law and order, technical advice, funding for UN volunteers.
* Rural development funding
* $500,000 for essential services.


Fiji: $6m

Five-year programme focuses on governance, squatters, poverty.

* Education, including teacher training, books, mobile pre-school.
* Governance/civil society including funding for legislative reviews, Fiji Human Rights Commission, Women's Crisis Centres.
* Housing in squatter settlements.
* Rural initiatives including bee-keeping, fishing, small-scale horticulture and goat farming.
* NZ hospital treatment funding


Kiribati: $3.1m

Education including $1.4 million for university scholarships.

* Public sector and legal assistance.
* $100,000 for NZ hospital treatment.


Niue: $18.5m

(Niue's status as self-governing in free association with NZ means we are constitutionally obliged to provide economic and administrative assistance).

* $20m over five years for economic development and infrastructure.
* $7.5 million to Niue Government trust fund in 2004/05.
* $270,000 for air service maintenance and tourism.
* $340,000 for vanilla farming
* Education support including teacher development, teaching resources, tertiary scholarships.
* Cyclone Heta recovery.


Papua New Guinea (includes Bougainville): $13.5m

Country strategy focuses on maternal and child health, education, rural economic development, governance and civil society. NZ also has co-ordinating role in health.

* HIV/Aids programmes
* Education including indigenous school journal project, training, teacher development.
* Fresh Produce Development Agency.
* Rural economic development project in Huon Gulf.

Bougainville

* Teacher development funding.
* Law and justice programmes.
* Community policing project.
* NGO support.
* Governance and Implementation Fund.
* Leprosy Mission funding


Samoa: $8.2m

Development strategy focuses on strengthened private sector, agriculture, tourism, community development, student learning and health.

* $2.8 million for tertiary scholarships.
* Teacher training.
* Small business development.
* $5m over five years on public sector programmes.
* Visiting health specialists.


Solomon Islands: $18m

* $30m over three years for education programmes.
* Voter enrolment project pre-election.
* Economic advice.
* Justice/court assistance.
* NGO relief funding.
* Small business support.


Tokelau: $25.6m

(non-self-governing territory of NZ). NZAID provides about 80 per cent of Tokelau revenue.

* Review of shipping services.
* Power project planning and implementation.
* Student scholarships.
* Cyclone relief.


Tonga: $9.8m

Priorities include education, health, economic development, governance, strengthening civil society.

* Tertiary scholarships, school leaver training.
* NZ hospital treatment.
* Water reticulation schemes in villages.
* Public sector programmes.
* Small business and community development


Tuvalu: $2.1m

Focus on economic management, education and outer island development. Funding to rise to $16.5 million by 2007/08 under five- year development programme.

* $912,000 to tertiary scholarships and vocational training.
* $85,000 for NZ hospital treatment.
* $350,000 for outer island development funding


Vanuatu: $7.3m

* Education funding includes curriculum, resources and training.
* Law and order, including NZ judge.
* Public service capacity building.
* Domestic violence programme.
* Economic development planning.


French Pacific territories: $625,000

Mainly for training, in New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia


Micronesia: $500,000

Mainly for training, in Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau.


* An additional $31.7 million was spent on regional projects in the Pacific in 2004/05.