NZ's Foreign Minister wants focus on Pacific development, not aid Featured
New Zealand's Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee
10 July, 2017. New Zealand's foreign minister says he wants to continue to shift his country's aid towards economic development.
Gerry Brownlee's predecessor, Murray McCully's approach to development assistance has been criticised by some as helping New Zealand businesses and creating white elephant projects.
Organisations which work on alleviating poverty in the Pacific, and which have lost funding, have also criticised the change.
But Gerry Brownlee said his tenure would not see any major departure from Mr McCully's approach, which he said was helping Pacific countries help themselves.
"Getting rid of that word aid and promoting the word development in the contributions that New Zealand makes to life in the Pacific is where I'd like to see things head. If you just want to spend your time treading water, eventually you'll drown. If you want to invest in some swimming lessons you've got a chance of saving yourself and that's the type of approach I'd like to invest in."
-RNZI
1 comment
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If all things in nature, mind and society stand in eternal relations of exchange, giving rise to stasis and crisis, then how can this fact of history be measured in terms of aid and development? If the focus is development and not aid, then what is the difference? If aid and development are entwined and intertwined in the social process, then how can we deal with both in isolation from one another?
Or, is it a matter of precedence, where development takes the lead over aid? If so then can there be hope in the Pacific to ever liberate itself from the curse and bondage of perpetual dependency mentality, with the impending environmental and social crisis brought about by the all-embracing capitalist democracy and scientific and technological culture?