Reflections ahead of the 2022 Federal Budget

But as 7.30pm ticks around tonight, the annual head scratching will commence as the development sector receives its briefing and crunches the budget numbers. Up? Down? Capped? Temporary? ODA? Non-ODA? Enough? Not enough? Any change at all?

Domestically, the development budget finds itself at the centre of a policy stalemate. Option one: increase development assistance and risk the wrath of the party room or a public concerned by domestic economic recovery and natural disaster. Option two: decrease development assistance and ignore the human development challenges of the region and our geopolitical reality. Option three: lay low on budget night, but spend outside of development finance calculations, risking the frustration of analysts who want more visibility, proof of impact and transparency than this can give.

To date, the option and rewards of a bold upsize and rethink of the development program hasn’t been seriously considered.

One way to judge the development budget is against internationally agreed standards, rankings and generosity indices. This approach reveals some unbecoming hard truths for Australia which ranks amongst the least generous of all OECD donors. This is a critical measure.

But the adequacy of Australian support to the region’s recovery and resilience ought also be measured against (1) the scale of health, social and economic crises and its severe impacts on the region if human development indicators spiral downwards; (2) the implications for Australia and Australians of those impacts and (3) whether our developmental architecture, policy and delivery capability can be relied upon for the next wave of challenges.

This is a conversation the Australian development community would be the richer for facing head-on.

An Indo-Pacific where economies slow, inequality grows and poverty increases can lead to people feeling frustrated with their leaders - a playbook for internal instability such as that seen most recently in Solomon Islands and parts of Papua New Guinea. Australia cannot isolate itself from the impacts of this. Instability in the region challenges national security at home and our foreign policy interests abroad. But the opposite is also true: development-derived human security can generate community, national and regional resilience – ultimately contributing to the sort of open, free and prosperous Indo-Pacific Australia and its allies desire. This is a job for a well-funded and highly capable development portfolio.