Over the past five years, this debate has narrowed in Australia to focus on whether the country’s development program should be used as a tool for strategic competition with China – particularly in the Pacific.
This debate evokes a binary between development assistance that is designed for geostrategic ends, and that which is used to pursue social and economic development.
In practice, however, policymakers rarely face such a stark choice. Many Official Development Assistance (ODA)-funded activities can, and do, produce both geostrategic and development outcomes.
This Brief, based on a presentation to the 2023 Australasian AID Conference, explores how policymakers navigate these dual objectives. It suggests a new way to think about the central tension in development policy and practice, and concludes with suggestions for sharpening the quality, clarity and impact of Australian development decisions.
