Foreign Aid In Australia

Foreign aid aims to reduce poverty and create sustainable economic growth and development in the Indo-Pacific regions whilst promoting Australia’s national interests. Australian aid helps to provide access to safe drinking water for 2.9 million more people and enable 1.4 million more children to enrol in school.

There are two main perspectives on foreign aid in Australia – are we giving too much or not enough? Foreign aid is given to developing countries, and is necessary to build an environment where policies and infrastructure can be in place to support other sources of finance. Australia is part of the worldwide foreign aid commitment as we value that everyone should have a fair go, and the country plans to give $3.9 billion over 2017 and 2018. We help countries in need by contributing, food, resources, providing financial assistance, exchanging goods, personal time and knowledge. The main types of aid are humanitarian aid, which is disaster relief and emergency aid and development aid, which is a long-term commitment between nations. Australian aid is strongly on development aid particularly focused on the Asia-Pacific region, but it also has a strong commitment to African and South Asia. Interestingly, 90% of Australia’s foreign aid goes to Asia-Pacific countries such as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, because if they build into a developed nation, then we can build trade relations, regional security and partner in defence. This is a polarizing issue that divides the nation due to different views on Australia giving aid, however, a strong foreign aid program is vital for Australia to build successful relations and regional security.

Ever had that one friend? The one who tries to help, but no matter how hard he tries, he just aggravates the situation. This friend, Steve, insists he is helping, and those around, too, would support that he is indeed helping. But Steve is actually worsening the circumstances. He is like countries who provide foreign aid to less developed countries. Foreign aid, defined as “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population,” can be military, economic, or humanitarian (“Foreign”). It is often granted to less developed countries in order to evoke government reforms or to stimulate economic growth. However, foreign aid neither elicits government reform, nor does it consistently and reliably stimulate economic growth; therefore, the United States should discontinue providing foreign economic aid.

Providing aid to developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region allows the countries to develop politically and economically, helping the region prosper, and therefore improve Australia’s personal security. The aid provided by Australia helps developing countries to stabilise their situation

Australian-Indonesian relations are the foreign relations between the two countries, whether economically, politically, legally or socially. Australian-Indonesian relations involve an interaction in foreign policies between the two nations (Wolfsohn, 1951, p. 68). As long as Indonesia is Australia 's closest and largest neighbor, they are bound to have great international relations. These relations began as early as the 17th century and had only become enhanced with time (Daly, 2003, p. 397). The relationship has been defined by a conjoint growth trade of up to $14 between the years 2011-2012 which reports an increase from the previous economic year (Mark, 2012, p.402). These countries are members of various trade deals such as the ASEAN Regional Forum in addition to having close ties with education, defense, and leadership. Australia 's relationship with Indonesia is crucial, and lack of such could severely bruise the economy, and hence they need to keep united by ensuring the use of widespread media with beneficial input. Australia interacts with Indonesia in a way such as sporting activity, tourism, education, economic policies, youth exchange programs, cultures and above all their diplomacy (Okamoto, 2010, p.241).

The prospect outlook for U.S foreign Aid abroad according to 2010 Budget for the U.S Government is as follow, there will be a 10 percent increase on U.S Foreign Aid and the State Department Budget will get a hefty 51.75 billion dollars in the fiscal year 2010. What the U.S State Department Budget goals are, an estimated $8 billion increase in the annual outlay to the International Monetary Fund, full funding for scheduled payments to the World Bank, plus “a portion of the outstanding arrears to reinforce the U.S. commitment to play a leadership in these institutions.”, Increases non-military aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to counter the resurgence of the Taliban, Increased funding, at an unspecified amount, for global health programs, including AIDS

Majority of Australians take pride in having a generous nature when it comes to helping people or communities in need. Our foreign minister back in the year of 1997 Mr Alexander Downer, pointed this out when he made the statement “the generosity of Australians and our commitment to giving to others, much worse off than ourselves, a fair go.” The 2015-2016 foreign aid budget which was put forward by the Abbott government has cut foreign aid funding from A$5.0 billion to A$4.0 billion, which is a cut of exactly A$1 billion, the biggest cut to the aid program since its creation 40 years ago.

Australia’s aid program has many benefits to the Australian people and our economy. The aid program is used to promote Australia’s national interests through contributing to economic growth and poverty reduction. The aid program originally did not have a strong focus on promoting economic growth, but now Australia does have that strong focus. Through helping people overcome poverty, Australia increases Australia’s national interests by promoting stability and prosperity both in Australia and overseas.

In a recent opinion poll, Australian voters naively believed that our foreign aid budget is ten time bigger than it actually is. In fact compared with other countries the government can not be seen as a big-hearted foreign aid donor and unfortunately due to the recent cuts there is little hope of improvement in the near future

A recent national poll published in The Guardian revealed that the average adult Australian respondent believes that over 13% of the Australian federal budget is spent on foreign aid overseas . When asked what percentage of the budget should go to foreign aid, the average response proposed around 10.34% . This was clearly a gross overestimate considering that foreign aid makes up only 0.9% of the federal budget . This result suggests that the average Australian, despite having an inaccurate sense of the realities, would still propose a reduction in the amount that Australia contributes to foreign aid.

Foreign aid has not been a formal element of our budget for too long; in fact it’s only been policy and budgeted for just over half a century. This is not to say prior to the 1940s there was no international aid-type involvement; it was just in other conventions and for other purposes. For example, there was humanitarian relief in some European countries, private investment in French and British colonies, and

The dictionary definition of the term 'foreign aid ' is: "The administered transfer of resources from the advanced countries for the purpose of encouraging economic growth in developing countries." [Bannock:1988 P.164] However, so as not to confuse foreign aid with the investments of multinational corporations or commercial banks, many economists require foreign aid to meet two distinct criteria: 1)

Foreign aid or (development assistance) is often regarded as being too much, or wasted on corrupt recipient governments despite any good intentions from donor countries. In reality, both the quantity and quality of aid have been poor and donor nations have not been held to account. In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their gross national income as official international development aid, annually. Since

In addition to their Joint Understanding, Australia’s Overview of Aid Program to Indonesia has provided support to Indonesian laws and justice by helping develop robust legal and justice systems, well-run elections and an active civil society. Australia is also assisting the Indonesian government to strengthen its ability to formulate

Foreign aid has in different periods of history played an important part in the economic development of many countries, which are now industrially advanced and prosperous are included among them. For instance, the United Kingdom received aid