EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AUSTRALIAN AID TO SAMOA By William John Hamblin PhD Thesis 2004 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. William John Hamblin ABSTRACT On a global basis over A$450 billion is invested each year in foreign direct investment and aid with a view to supporting development. Developing countries themselves allocate significant sums out of their own budgets in order to stimulate development. Development is concomitantly a major goal and enterprise of the global economy. Developed countries through aid (Official Development Assistance) spend large sums purportedly to improve the development status of developing countries. Recently voices from within the developed world’s establishment have derided the performance of aid and by default the performance of state organisations charged with managing aid delivery. Australia has not been immune from this criticism. Its aid program while modest by global standards still consumes A$1.5 billion in taxpayers money each year. Australian aid is delivered primarily by the Australian International Aid Agency (AusAID) with smaller contributions through the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Defence and Australian Federal Police. AusAID has recently faced severe criticism over failure of the aid investment in the South Pacific to engender development. Most South Pacific countries (excluding Fiji and Samoa) have failed to show desired development. A number have faced bankruptcy (Naru, Solomon Islands), while others have increasing lawlessness (Papua New Guinea). It is important in the above milieu to examine the delivery mechanisms of Australian aid through its chosen vehicle (AusAID) and determine whether aid has really been effective or not. This thesis reviews the development effectiveness of Australian aid in one Pacific island nation – Samoa. In this context, the effectiveness of Australian development assistance is reviewed in terms of the results of four case studies of project aid to Samoa. The four case studies cover a range of project activity in differing sectors and offer specific insights into aid policy and delivery and the effects other variables such as culture, history and development status have on development outcomes. The thesis tests the hypothesis that Australian aid to Samoa has resulted in only limited development success and then in ways that are not generally sustainable. In confirming the hypothesis, this thesis identifies that while variables such as the procedural and policy underpinnings of the Australian aid program, aid design/delivery and management, and the history, culture and development status of Samoa impact on the development outcomes, they do not prohibit development. This thesis concludes that development outcomes will be maximised when there are good macro policies present, sound sector policies and real commitments of the government and people to development. Moreover, this thesis finds that while development theories inform the debate over aid none successfully encapsulates the actual development process. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to acknowledge the support of AusAID and the Government of Samoa in permitting access to project papers and material. Further, I wish to thank those officers within the Government of Samoa and externally who agreed to be interviewed in relation to this thesis. I also acknowledge that the views expressed in this thesis are in no way to be construed as representing the views of either the Government of Australia or the Government of Samoa. Any errors in interpretation of data or omissions are those of the writer. 3 SAMOA 4 Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................ 8 The Concept of Aid........................................................................................ 10 Australian Aid – A Brief History...................................................................... 11 AusAID – A Brief History................................................................................ 13 Definitions of Development and Sustainable Development ........................... 16 Australian Aid and the Modernisation Discourse ........................................... 18 Outline of the Thesis...................................................................................... 19 Position of the Writer Within the Context of Research................................... 22 Study Setting ................................................................................................. 22 Limitations of the Study ................................................................................. 23 CHAPTER 2 THESIS METHODOLOGY....................................................... 24 Use of Case Studies Instead of Surveys ....................................................... 24 Making Reliable Comparisons ....................................................................... 25 Accountability Versus Lessons Learned........................................................ 27 Ex-Post Evaluation ........................................................................................ 28 Projects Sample and Size.............................................................................. 28 Review Methodology ..................................................................................... 29 AusAID Evaluation Plans/Baseline Studies ................................................... 32 Meeting with AusAID Review Team............................................................... 32 Ratings Systems............................................................................................ 33 Definition of “Sustainability” Adopted............................................................. 33 CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............. 35 Why Does Development Matter?................................................................... 35 Underdevelopment and Development in the 20th Century ............................ 36 Modernisation Theories ................................................................................. 37 Dependency Theories.................................................................................... 42 Benefits of Modernisation and Dependency Theories ................................... 47 Analysis of Development in the 1990's .......................................................... 48 Development in the 21st Century – Globalisation Theory............................... 49 Problems with Globalisation Theory .............................................................. 53 Post Structuralism.......................................................................................... 56 World Systems Theory .................................................................................. 58 Economic Theories of Development.............................................................. 59 The Developing Country Situation ................................................................. 61 Is Money the Prime Determinant of Development? ....................................... 62 The Aid Debate.............................................................................................. 62 Summary ....................................................................................................... 64 CHAPTER 4 AUSTRALIAN AID POLICY RECONSIDERED....................... 66 Evolution of the Australian Aid Program - The PNG Experience ................... 66 Aid As An Instrument of Foreign Policy and Defence .................................... 67 Aid As An Instrument of Trade Policy ............................................................ 68 Revised Aid Framework................................................................................. 70 Australia’s One Clear Objective..................................................................... 72 Is It So Clear?................................................................................................ 73 A Concept of Development............................................................................ 73 Results Oriented Aid/Development................................................................ 77 Has Australian Aid “One Clear Objective”?.................................................... 82 Development Discourse and the Policy ......................................................... 83 Modernisation, Dependency and Globalisation Discourse............................. 84 5 Samoa As An Example of Australian Aid....................................................... 87 CHAPTER 5 HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OF SAMOA........ 88 The Development Impact of History............................................................... 88 Origin of Samoa............................................................................................