There’s aid, and there’s aid
p. 55 · Read in the full issue
IM’S columnist Futa Helu raised some controversial uestions on aid benefits (“Aid aiding corruption”, PIM, Oct), le argued that only the autocrats and plutocrats benefit from the aid game” and that people at grassroots miss out. He said le poor and working people of the island are harmed by aid.
“Apart from its demoralising effects, robbing them of ardour
id initiative for work, submitting guilt and ibmission for natural pride, we now find aid mtributes to corruption, deception and fraud i the part of islanders in high places,” Futa id, adding: “Foreign aid may make two in tri but ions to islanders. First, training ilisation of what they already have. I dare ate, against the materialistic but attractive d philosophy ... that what islanders need ost is a feel for proper and full utilisation of isting resources, the creative use of what ey have. Introduction of raw materials must ait for attitudes, and outlooks should be the st to be adapted. The islanders now have lined people who know the situation better a number of areas, but are shunted off to tier minor tasks when foreign experts carin’ into the land”.
Futa made a lot of other valid points, but I like to join in the controversy only so far it involves the South Pacific Trade immission. Although we are an arm of the
rum, we are an aid agency. And we employ professionals, t there are many kinds of aid, and our kind calls for us to Ip governments and the private sector in the islands to more actively do what they want to do.
We work directly with the private sector, but any lievements, any benefits, are theirs. We give advice when it’s ;ed for, training if it’s wanted, and point business towards /ers, sellers, joint-venture partners and finance etc if |uired. We are part of a market advisory service provided hout cost, but it is local commerce whether or not supported their governments, that chooses to accept the advice or not. ually it won’t work without initiative and hard labour from business that receives the benefits and, of course, suffers the isequence when they don’t make it work. fhis, it seems to me, is just the kind of aid that Futa Helu nts to see that those islanders who benefit from it are the s who do the work and sink or swim on their own initiatives. :h people can have no reason to be demoralised by anything offer them, no reason to substitute guilt and submission for ural pride, or be robbed of their odour for work. The trade
Tradewinds
commission is down there at the grass roots with the workers.
As for this kind of aid contributing to corruption, deception and fraud, where are the opportunities for it? How can we be corrupting? And how can the people who work in the islands on the Australian Executive Overseas program be corrupting?
Let me summarise the range of activities the South Pacific
Trade Commission undertakes. The com mission provides a first point of contact for business people in the Forum island countries, and we can answer many, if not most, of the questions they ask about Australian or third country markets. In Sydney we have a base from which island entrepreneurs wanting to explore the Australian market can operate.
The commission itself regularly exhibits island products in specialised trade displays and we can arrange small promotions for individual island firms. Our attachment program brings people to Australia for about a month at a time on trade programs they ask for and which we specifically design for them, with their collaboration and approval. How much, or how little, they get out of such programs is up to them.
We subscribe to computer networks that update business information so that we can quickly respond to island queries about products, companies or people. We can scan
reports in the Australian and some foreign press for five years back for articles on particular topics, and supply copies of them.
We have a joint venture with Radio Australia for a weekly program of islands business news. “Pacific Sunrise”, which is broadcast into the Pacific on Mondays.
Speaking for us here at the commission office, we help because we want to help. Business people ourselves, we enjoy our work, because it’s very satisfactory seeing the results. We and island business have common interests, confirmed by a file of appreciative letters and notes from the achievers although more often than not we hear how much our aid is appreciated when we move around and talk to people, and see their developments at first hand.
As I have said, Futa Helu has some valid points on the general question of aid. But there is aid and there is aid, and I think distinctions should be drawn.
Bill McCabe is Senior Commissioner of the South Pacific Trade Commission, Sydney, an arm of the South Pacific Forum. The "Pacific Sunrise" program Is broadcast by Radio Australia over a span of frequencies at 0713 hrs, 1513 hrs, 1713 hrs and 2113 hrs universal time.