Aid Budget Increase
A welcomed increase to the aid budget For those that want a more in depth look at the aid budget, here’s a rundown of the details: Overall Funding
The Aid budget is set to increase by close to half a billion dollars to $4,836m in the coming financial year. As a percentage of GNI, this represents an increase from 0.33% to 0.35% and is in line with Australia’s stated plan to reach 0.5% by 2015/2016.
Indonesia will receive the biggest increase in funding of partner countries, with an additional 498.2 million over four years being allocated to: improve education through building 2,000 schools and training 10,000 teachers providing benefit to300,000 students while also improving the quality of tertiary education; deliver small scale rural infrastructure and prov access to justice by piloting legal aid in fifty courts.
If the Government remains on track to reach its 0.5% commitment, this year will actually be the smallest aid increase for the next 4 years, with the magnitude of increase going up every year from now until 2015.
$ '000,000 1200
Aid Budget Increase
1000 800 600 400 200 0
Comment Given the economic pressures for the government to deliver a ‘tough budget’, seeing aid, in Rudd’s words, quarantined from spending cuts is great news. It’s worth remembering though that while our aid budget is growing and growing robustly, in global terms Australia still lags well behind the majority of the world’s aid giving nations. The 0.35% commitment is substantially below the global average of 0.49% and places Australia 14th out of the 23 nations in the world’s aid giving league table. Catalyst, supporting the Micah Challenge campaign, will continue placing pressure on the Government to make a timetabled commitment to increase aid to the international aid target of 0.7% gross national income. With the aid budget growing faster than it ever has before and with us calling upon the Government to continue these
increases into the future, building support for international development assistance and keeping pressure on the Government will become all the more important in the years ahead.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH)
A new WaSH initiative, costed at $441 million dollars over four years was announced in this year s aid budget. This initiative will provide safe water, basic sanitation and improved hygiene practices for over four million people across East Asia, South Asia and Africa.
A number of WaSH projects are expected to finish up by the middle of this year. This will mean that there will be a temporary dip in WaSH spending, falling from 173 million to 117 million. After this however, spending will increase, rising to $271 million by 2013/2014
WaSH Spending
'000 000 $300 $250 $200 $150 $100 $50 $2010/2011
2011/2012
2012/2013
2013/2014
WaSH which had previously been classified as infrastructure spending alongside roads and telephone lines will now, appropriately be classified as health spending. This will better reflect the fact that WaSH spending is one of the most significant and beneficial forms of public health expenditure available.
Comment While it is unfortunate to see a temporary reduction in WaSH spending, the overall trajectory is promising. Micah has been calling on the Australian Government to give its fair share of WaSH aid, 500m, by 2015/2016. While on current trends we’ll fall short, the new commitments announced by the Government will get us much closer than we’ve previously been.
2
Health
Total spending on Health is expected to rise to 642 million dollars for the 2011/2012 budget.
Government’s expenditure for health throughout the 2010/2011 budget period is estimated to come in at about 80 million dollars above what had been originally budgeted (634million dollars instead of 555m). This is good news. Micah has been calling on the Government to increase the priority given to health in the aid budget and this unexpected increase certainly reflects this.
Health Assistance will continue its current regional focus with a strong emphasis on the Asia Pacific region. But in the current budget there is growing engagement in South Asia and Eastern Africa.
In PNG, Australian Aid has allowed 134,000 people to be tested for HIV (a five-fold increase since 2006), increased the number of children and adults on antiretroviral therapy to 7,555, and allowed 75% of the eligible population to access HIV treatment, which is especially impressive as this treatment was nonexistent for PNG in 2003.
As a proportion of the aid budget, Health spending is budgeted to fall over the next 4 years.
25.00%
Health spending as a percentage of the aid budget
20.00% 15.00%
Health %
10.00%
Target
5.00% 0.00%
Comment While the unexpected bump to health in 2010 and the small increase to health in this current budget are both welcomed, the need to do more work with regard to health advocacy was made very clear by this year’s budget announcement. Across the sector, there is a general consensus that health should be given a much bigger priority than it currently receives. Micah Challenge has been calling on the government to increase health aid to 20% of the overall aid budget. Not
3
only is the Australian Government set to fall far short of this target, they are actually moving further away from it. The message we hear from politicians is that health should be a priority, so it is disappointing to see this rhetoric is not being backed up in dollar figures. The Opposition’s Response After some aid-critical comments made by Mr. Tony Abbott MP and Mr. Joe Hockey MP in the media shortly after the release of the budget, there was some concern that the bipartisan commitment to increasing aid to 0.5% may have been under threat. However, after being asked to clarify the Coalition’s stance on aid, Ms. Julie Bishop, the deputy opposition leader and aid spokesperson, came out in support of the MDGs stating, There is no change to the Coalition policy of increasing the foreign aid budget to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015-16"
4
The Aid budget is set to increase by close to half a billion dollars to $4,836m in the coming financial year. As a percentage of GNI, this represents an increase from 0.33% to 0.35% and is in line with Australia’s stated plan to reach 0.5% by 2015/2016.
Indonesia will receive the biggest increase in funding of partner countries, with an additional 498.2 million over four years being allocated to: improve education through building 2,000 schools and training 10,000 teachers providing benefit to300,000 students while also improving the quality of tertiary education; deliver small scale rural infrastructure and prov access to justice by piloting legal aid in fifty courts.
If the Government remains on track to reach its 0.5% commitment, this year will actually be the smallest aid increase for the next 4 years, with the magnitude of increase going up every year from now until 2015.
$ '000,000 1200
Aid Budget Increase
1000 800 600 400 200 0
Comment Given the economic pressures for the government to deliver a ‘tough budget’, seeing aid, in Rudd’s words, quarantined from spending cuts is great news. It’s worth remembering though that while our aid budget is growing and growing robustly, in global terms Australia still lags well behind the majority of the world’s aid giving nations. The 0.35% commitment is substantially below the global average of 0.49% and places Australia 14th out of the 23 nations in the world’s aid giving league table. Catalyst, supporting the Micah Challenge campaign, will continue placing pressure on the Government to make a timetabled commitment to increase aid to the international aid target of 0.7% gross national income. With the aid budget growing faster than it ever has before and with us calling upon the Government to continue these
increases into the future, building support for international development assistance and keeping pressure on the Government will become all the more important in the years ahead.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH)
A new WaSH initiative, costed at $441 million dollars over four years was announced in this year s aid budget. This initiative will provide safe water, basic sanitation and improved hygiene practices for over four million people across East Asia, South Asia and Africa.
A number of WaSH projects are expected to finish up by the middle of this year. This will mean that there will be a temporary dip in WaSH spending, falling from 173 million to 117 million. After this however, spending will increase, rising to $271 million by 2013/2014
WaSH Spending
'000 000 $300 $250 $200 $150 $100 $50 $2010/2011
2011/2012
2012/2013
2013/2014
WaSH which had previously been classified as infrastructure spending alongside roads and telephone lines will now, appropriately be classified as health spending. This will better reflect the fact that WaSH spending is one of the most significant and beneficial forms of public health expenditure available.
Comment While it is unfortunate to see a temporary reduction in WaSH spending, the overall trajectory is promising. Micah has been calling on the Australian Government to give its fair share of WaSH aid, 500m, by 2015/2016. While on current trends we’ll fall short, the new commitments announced by the Government will get us much closer than we’ve previously been.
2
Health
Total spending on Health is expected to rise to 642 million dollars for the 2011/2012 budget.
Government’s expenditure for health throughout the 2010/2011 budget period is estimated to come in at about 80 million dollars above what had been originally budgeted (634million dollars instead of 555m). This is good news. Micah has been calling on the Government to increase the priority given to health in the aid budget and this unexpected increase certainly reflects this.
Health Assistance will continue its current regional focus with a strong emphasis on the Asia Pacific region. But in the current budget there is growing engagement in South Asia and Eastern Africa.
In PNG, Australian Aid has allowed 134,000 people to be tested for HIV (a five-fold increase since 2006), increased the number of children and adults on antiretroviral therapy to 7,555, and allowed 75% of the eligible population to access HIV treatment, which is especially impressive as this treatment was nonexistent for PNG in 2003.
As a proportion of the aid budget, Health spending is budgeted to fall over the next 4 years.
25.00%
Health spending as a percentage of the aid budget
20.00% 15.00%
Health %
10.00%
Target
5.00% 0.00%
Comment While the unexpected bump to health in 2010 and the small increase to health in this current budget are both welcomed, the need to do more work with regard to health advocacy was made very clear by this year’s budget announcement. Across the sector, there is a general consensus that health should be given a much bigger priority than it currently receives. Micah Challenge has been calling on the government to increase health aid to 20% of the overall aid budget. Not
3
only is the Australian Government set to fall far short of this target, they are actually moving further away from it. The message we hear from politicians is that health should be a priority, so it is disappointing to see this rhetoric is not being backed up in dollar figures. The Opposition’s Response After some aid-critical comments made by Mr. Tony Abbott MP and Mr. Joe Hockey MP in the media shortly after the release of the budget, there was some concern that the bipartisan commitment to increasing aid to 0.5% may have been under threat. However, after being asked to clarify the Coalition’s stance on aid, Ms. Julie Bishop, the deputy opposition leader and aid spokesperson, came out in support of the MDGs stating, There is no change to the Coalition policy of increasing the foreign aid budget to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015-16"
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